A gaming community free from the hype and oversaturation of current releases, catering to gamers who wait at least 12 months after release to play a game. Whether it's price, waiting for bugs/issues to be patched, DLC to be released, don't meet the system requirements, or just haven't had the time to keep up with the latest releases.
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Project Hospital, X4: Foundations, and Elite Dangerous.
I haven't played Project Hospital for a long time, but all of the updates made me want to play again. I'm enjoying it a lot so far.
I've also just came back after years away from X4 and ED. I'm just relearning the basic systems again, but can see myself putting in a lot of hours back into Elite Dangerous. X4 is a tough cookie for me, but I think it's definitely worth trying to invest a bit more of my time into.
This week is more Enderal for me. A free total conversion of Skyrim (you need Skyrim obviously). It's a complete new game with new mechanics, story, skills, etc. It's fully voiced and waaaay better than Skyrim IMHO.
I just started Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep, as I make my way through the collection. I'm only about an hour in, but it seems like it might be a nice change of pace from the previous games. I am also getting huge Star Wars vibes off this one. Ven is a padawan, Terra is not yet granted the rank of Master. Eraqus reminds me of Qui-Gon a little, and Xehanort was clearly a Sith-y motherfucker even before what went down with Ansem.
The wandering village
It is a nice little recourse management game. What makes it special is that you need to do it on the back of an ancient "animal". If you befriend (it trusts your judgement ) or tame it can you tell it what to do like where to go (so you can pick a bio), sleep, eat, run, walk and so on. I went for the befriend route, hurting it by ripping out resources from it didn't sit well with me (but I am very curious, because you do miss out on a lot). The story is pretty simple but it is nicely paced and I do like the lore. I actually didn't really think the main quest would be anything special so I was happily surprised.
I remember being interested in it when it was first announced, but I totally forgot about it afterwards until your comment. I’ll definitely have to give it a try sometime.
Links Awakening - all time favourite and is fun on switch or gameboy
CP2077. Love the looks. Gameplay is fine. City is mostly backdrop yes, most of the focus seems to have been at crafting a bombastic main quest line. So far so good, just wish there were more depth to the city and its systems.
It feels like a great linear game somehow constrained by being an open world sprawlfest.
I'd genuinely recommend skipping all the fixer missions because they take ages and add very little to the experience, while also reducing the urgency of the storyline.
Make sure to play Phantom Liberty because that's honestly better than the main game.
Yeah early on at least it seems like one is encouraged to do side missions to get eddies. That seems to be the main motivation to me at the stage I’m in.
I can't say I was ever hurting for money.
I think it just tonally doesn't fit the game at all after act 1.
"Here is a very urgent thing. We can't stress enough how urgent this is. Also would you like to do a load of pointless shit for these random people that have no bearing on anything?"
They give such a minor amount of money, that I'd just sell the guns that drop and they drop by the dozen. The only real thing to buy is new chrome, and it's something I basically did twice during my playthrough. Once when things were getting rough in combat, which made things far too easy tbh, and again when I hit max level and there wasn't anything better to have. I think originally there were stats on clothes as well, but that's all gone since the 2.0 update.
I still did them, but that's mostly because I'd bought the game and didn't want to leave gameplay on the table as it were. This is really the first game that made me question why I do that, and if I should. I'll often skip the boring collectibles in games, and these quests really felt bordering on collecting 100 feathers in Assassin's Creed or something.
I think CDPR have has this issue since the Witcher 3 tbh. They know how to make amazing story based games, with nice enough writing and characters, and some lovely grey area decisions where there's no real right and wrong, and then mar it with boring open world design.
"Here is a very urgent thing. We can't stress enough how urgent this is. Also would you like to do a load of pointless shit for these random people that have no bearing on anything?"
Lol every RPG ever. Though some pull it off better than others by somehow connecting more pieces back to the main quest.
I think CDPR have has this issue since the Witcher 3 tbh. They know how to make amazing story based games, with nice enough writing and characters, and some lovely grey area decisions where there's no real right and wrong, and then mar it with boring open world design.
Yes absolutely, although I don’t recall this being quite so egregious in the Witcher. But that was a long time ago, I may not remember it well.
My main takeaway from The Witcher 3 was "must find Ciri, the world is in danger!" followed by quite a lot of Gwent.
The Bloody Baron questline was probably the highlight, along with the Hearts of Stone storyline. The rest of it was going to question marks on the map, hoping to find something more interesting than a box to open or a surprise enemy attack. This got especially bad once you reached Skellige and had to faff about with a boat to reach half of them.
It really felt like they were pressured into making it open world or something. I've said before that it's a really good, cinematic action game that is stapled to an average open world backdrop, and the two halves work more against eachother than they work together.
If you can stomach the ludonarrative dissonance and maintain your suspension of disbelief though it's a really good game at this point.
Also surprised it’s still buggy after all this time. Nothing too serious, but still. Treating it as a flawed but pretty action adventure game with neon lights is the only way.
Maybe CDPR underestimated the effort to create a convincing modern metropolis open world. It’s a whole different ball game to the small villages and towns of the Witcher. Maybe they’ll get it right in the sequel, if they make one.
Started out trying to play F.E.A.R. platinum edition and Tomb Raider GOTY edition. I just don't like story games... TR is far more story heavy than F.E.A.R. but both have plenty of cut scenes. I also feel like maybe TR was created during the peak of quick time events because the first half hour was just mash some button repeatedly to win the movie (the game uses the word "mash", that's not just me). I ended up playing Dead Cells and Gradius V instead. I suppose I just like more arcadey style games.
I finally finished downloading all the digital games I had for the PS4 that had single player content and disable the network connection in order to prepare for an eventual jailbreak, so maybe I'll play DOOM 2016 this week. Never did finish it.
I played F.E.A.R. just a few months ago and it's so good man. Holds up so well. Still looks great too. Are you using the EchoPatch? I found it to be just a super solid timeless FPS that can stand on its own purely based on gameplay. Apart from the bizarrely anemic assault rifle all the weapons are so satisfying to use, and the AI still feels surprisingly good even in 2025.
Also, make sure you play the first expansion Extraction Point, it's imo even better than the base game. Don't play the second expansion though.
I very much remember when the ceiling ninjas show up for the first time in F.E.A.R. I physically recoiled and almost fell out of my chair.
Fire Emblem: Three Houses. My kid and I assigned video games to each other for the summer and that's what I got assigned. They're playing Persona 5 Golden.
Not a patient game anytime soon, but they loved the original Fantasy Life and we've been playing and loving the new one too.
Age of Wonders 3.
Most games tend to go the same way. I kindly and peacefully expand my empire by slaughtering mobs while the bot players destroy each other. Eventually i hold over half the map, tens of thousands in gold and stacks of armies on the borders. When the final bot unavoidably declares war on me, I overwhelm their least defended cities, tank their economy and watch it lose its armies due to lack of gold, giving me an easy win.
I decided to take a break from BG3 and started playing the first Death Stranding. I'm still pretty early in the game but it's already got me intrigued. The story is way out there and I hope it all comes together to make sense at some point.
If in-person tabletop gaming is okay here, my group is about to start one called Don't Tell Mom & Dad, an RPG in the vein of Stranger Things. You play a bunch of kids having supernatural adventures around their town.
Heroes of Hammerwatch: It's a roguelike 2d isometric RPG. Haven't played much yet but so far I haven't found a reason to stop playing.
Death Stranding 2. I'm taking my sweet ass time with this game. Absolutely love it.
Decided to test the Warframe waters. Only about 2 hours in, it seems pretty good so far. I'm still trying to see how much grind there really is once the intro is over.
He Is Coming - I've been able to make it to day 3 already, but the game feels a little shallow. Not ready to drop it yet, but will see.
Lots and lots of Vintage Story. It feels like a much more mature version of Minecraft and a combination of the best features of it and games like The Forest, even though it's still in early access.
I’ll have to look into it. Sounds promising by your description.