Games

I've been repeatedly dying in Silksong the whole break :/

Shooting shapes in Sektori, a stunningly good arcade twin-stick, bashing dragon toes and playing bells in Guild Wars 2, a fun ARPG-MMO where we recently added a few more dress-up dolls to our roster just because we play a lot and like a few more ways to play, and third, mowing down hallways full of bugs in Combat Complex, a top-down shooter ARPG that's weak on the ARPG aspects but the shooter side manages to feel like a great arcade twin-stick, plus some neat enemy-enemy friendly-fire mechanics.

Much more the first two than the third, as CC is good but it's in early access and they recently changed and botched the progression, so playing right now at my level/floor is basically worthless, and I just have to hope they eventually do something to fix it.

Sektori, though, is seriously good.

Got expedition 33 running on the steam deck (with some amount of tweaking to make it run smooth - valve should not be marking that game as verified) and it has absorbed every moment of free time I have. Fully understand the hype now. Apart from that, Outer Wilds had been sitting in my library since the summer sale untouched and I've finally gotten into it, and Dispatch was really fun and beautifully animated.

I've been playing mega bonk. It's very addicting and fun

EU5 has been my sole game for over a month now. It needs some work, and I don't love paradox, and I think think the game is too much of a cookie-clicker reskin... but it's scratching that grand strategy itch.

I've also been on turtle-wow (private vanilla+) which has really been recapturing the spirit of 2004-08 wow for 7(?) years now.

Outer Wilds has completely absorbed me. I went in knowing absolutely nothing about the game and am so glad I did!

In order of most played recently to least played recently:

GTAV

Dark Souls Remastered

WWE 2k25

No break for me but I've been doing "old dog, new tricks" by picking up some SMW Kaizo. I'm four exits out of seven in Shell's Retriever so far. I think I'm doing fair for only being a couple weeks into playing romhacks and for last playing SMW in the 90s. I don't think I'll ever get around to "Baron of Shell" or any other crazy hard hacks but it has been fun working on a few of the "easy" ones.

I'll probably get back to Factorio after I finish Retriever. Possibly not until after the sequel, Shell's Redeemer, but I've previewed it and it looks substantially tougher.

WoW Classic and Megabonk - both on the Steam Deck - have been a great holiday time sink.

Factorio Minecraft and rimworld

But that's been the same for last few years so shrugs

I caved and picked up Clair Obscur. It's a genre that I'm really not a fan of, but it's just so exceptionally well made that I'm thoroughly enjoying it anyway.

Aongside that, I've been playing Rogue Trader at last, after my wife has been bugging me to play it for over a year. It's very, very good. Probably one of the best RPGs I've ever played. The degree to which your narrative choices matter is phenomenal. There are scenes in the tutorial that define the entire game. And it nails the setting.

Lastly, I picked up a founders pack for Soulframe. The only bad decision anyone made when working on this game was calling it Soulframe - it is in absolutely no way the "Fantasy Warframe" people are imagining. The designers say their big inspiration was Dragons Dogma. For me, I'd say the gameplay has a lot of the feel of Breath of the Wild. The combat is exceptionally tight. Easily one of the best combat systems I've ever played. There's not a huge amount to do yet, but it's early access, that's understandable, and I think they absolutely made the right choice in nailing the feel of the game before worrying about how much of it there is.

Divinity Original Sin 2. I had this in my library for a while since i played BG3 and loved it. DOS is good too but way more difficult and the story is a bit weaker. Still a great game though.

Still wakes the deep. I love a good horror game and this one scratches the itch. The ambiance is great and the oil rig feels like a real place.

Kingdom Come Deliverance 2. Playing the new DLC trying to cure a plague. Not as good as the other two dlcs but still good because more Henry is always good.

Finally diving into Octopath Traveler 2.

Also played some good old Team Fortress 2.

Haven't played yet but soon probably some hilarious lobbies of Lethal Company

divinity original sin 2: definitive edition(I have to say the full thing every time, so it annoys my partner.)

diddy kong racing (craving chunky bright colored polygons, and racist charicatures flying on carpets gifting golden balloons)

and super mario world. (mandatory)

During what break? Xmas?

Bitcraft Online, Outer Worlds 2 and Palia. im in my cosy crafty era lol

Guild wars reforged. I was thinking of firing up the old cd roms and then I saw the whole thing was re-released on steam. Been giving it a go - has held up well over 20 years.

Doing a new fallout 4 run. Been a couple years since I played.

Giving WorldWide Rush a solid go.

Ball X Pit. Just bouncing my baby balls all over the place is the best.

I've been burning through some Gamepass offerings that I've passed over.

The Wolf Among Us is a fun Telltale game.

Superliminal is a good mindfuck puzzle game. There were a few times that it took me a while to find the key to the puzzle, but I never felt "stumped" throughout the game.

and I'm a few hours into Monster Sanctuary which is essentially Pokemon in a classic Metroid map. Having fun so far and planning on sticking with it for a while.

I expedited 33 obscur clairs (damn, the new area is awesome), rescued some Yoshi eggs in Super Mario World and am now triggering all chronos I can find.

Finishing old games for me:

• Opus Magnum
• Mages of Mystralia
• Trying (and failing) to beat the attack helicopter level in Teardown.

Been fucking around with pals in Palworld again. Also trying to get matching free time with a friend so we can play Space Marine 2

I finally finished Metal Gear Solid 4 (❤️!). I played a bit of Helldivers 2 with friends. And I'm still working on my first playthrough of Tomb Raider 2 on my Anbernic handheld as my couch game.

I’ve been hung up on Unnamed Space Idle for a while, an incremental game that involves moving your little ship forwards through little sectors watching it blast infinite enemy ships while numbers go up. It’s insidious how it layers system after system for making those numbers go up to make the whole process interesting. At first you just slot stuff in as it unlocks because there’s space, but then there’s more to equip than you have slots for and you have to start focusing one or two things at a time. There have been days where I have just sat watching and every few minutes clicking something to shave just a few minutes off a major upgrade.

Got back into arc raiders just in time to do the expedition, and close to finishing the flickering flames project

I was technically driving trains too, as I was playing The Trolley Solution.

Megabonk.

Intravenous 1.

No third game. (This could be the name of a game, but sadly I'm referring to the fact that I only played those first two games during the holidays)

You all have enough time to play such a variety of games you can pick three best? Damn. I played one game. And it was a mobile one... :(