I’ve been playing a whole heck of a lot of Celeste lately. Been having a good time with some modded content after clearing all the vanilla content
D sides? Strawberry Jam?
I did a bit of 1-D. Did a little bit of spring collab advanced lobby but heard that strawberry jam was a bit more polished so I’ve been trying the SJ expert lobby and it’s very hard (~10 hours per level so far). I think it’s in the sweet spot of difficulty for me rn
I’m still playing Divinity: Original Sin II.
I also picked up Hollow Knight recently and I’m making progress, albeit painfully sometimes haha.Hollow Knight has also had me a little stuck sometimes, just remember to check your map to see if there’s sometime you might be able to reach. I had to look up locations to get the other ending.
Yep, thanks - so far I’ve avoided any guides and went in completely blind, I’m starting to explore the map again for what I might have missed.
spoiler
I’ve been trying to beat the Mantis Lords for a while, but I feel like there’s some other place I might be able to go for now - I think I haven’t fully explored the City of Tears yet, but got my first nail upgrade
I’m on a hollow knight replay (only played through it once) and getting stuck is just part of the ride
As always, iRacing and DRG. However, for something new, check out Split Fiction. Very fun co-op game by the makers of A Way Out and It Takes Two.
I’ve been playing It Takes Two this week with my daughter and it’s really good. I highly recommend it too.
Such a great game. We really enjoyed our time with it. The boss fights were harder than I expected but quite manageable after a few attempts.
What is DRG?
Deep Rock Galactic
most likely Deep Rock Galactic
DRG
My life for rock and stone!
Baldur’s Gate 2 Shadows of Amn. I’ve been agonising about there being so many interesting companions and only five slots.
I suspect that’ll be my answer for many months to come.
Ooh, I love BG2. What is your current lineup? And are you using any mods?
Just one mod, to add more portraits to speaking NPCs.
I’m a sorcerer (dragon disciple) and I’ve got Minsc, Jaheira, Jan (just picked him up to replace Yoshimo), Aerie, and Nalia.
In BG1 I had two rules: no evil or lawful characters, and no male characters. I did that just for fun after I noticed 5/6 were female and I had a certain belt.
I don’t think I’ll be able to follow the same rules now if I need a good thief and a warrior. Besides, Aerie is lawful but too cute to let go. I do seem to have a surplus of wizards though.
If you’re ever doing a second playthrough I highly recommend the Tweaks Anthology, which has some fixes and tweaks to companions that I think are just improvements. Specifically “Happy Patch - NPCs can be angry about reputation but never leave” and “NPCs Don’t Fight” are two that I highly recommend, as it lets you do mixed-alignment parties without people eventually killing each other or leaving, and the mixed alignment groups have some of the best inter party dialogue and funny banter in the game. Both Edwin and Viconia are very iconic characters, and the Viconia romance is particularly popular. Though I think the Jaheira romance is also pretty great.
I’m a sorcerer (dragon disciple) and I’ve got Minsc, Jaheira, Jan (just picked him up to replace Yoshimo), Aerie, and Nalia.
As I’m sure you’re starting to notice, the class distribution among the available companions is not the most diverse, which is unfortunate. I usually recommend Yoshimo for a first playthrough as he’s a great guide around Athkatla and has some story connections, but Jan is of course very entertaining. Nalia is probably my least favourite of the original cast actually, but even she does have her moments.
You didn’t say whether you’re playing the Enhanced Edition or the original game, but presuming it’s EE I would also advise against using Neera, Dorn, Rasaad or Hexxat on your first playthrough. They are all written by Beamdog and inserted with the Enhanced Edition, and don’t fit neither the vibe nor the writing standard of the original cast in my opinion.
Thanks for the info! I am indeed playing the EE. I quite liked Neera in BG1, but we’ll see how it goes. And yeah Nalia is a bit grating already.
As for Yoshimo, I kind of messed him up by putting all points in traps, which meant he sucked at opening locks. After Imoen was taken I had no-one to open harder locks. Although with the amount of mages I could go for Knock… Jan’s burping is annoying me already.
Jan is definitely a divisive character, people tend to either love him or hate him. I think he has some really funny dialogues but I can see why some people find him annoying. He gets bonus points if you use him alongside Anomen as he constantly mocks him. A lot of people hate Anomen for being a pompous ass, but the trick is to use him in a chaotic and/or evil party where he is constantly the butt of everyone’s jokes.
As for Yoshimo, I kind of messed him up by putting all points in traps, which meant he sucked at opening locks.
How many points did you sink into it? Traps are actually super powerful in BG 1&2 and should not be underestimated. You still don’t need more than a score of 100 in it, though. The Special Traps you get as Bounty Hunter are also super strong. Not only are they AoE, but they can be thrown instead of placed at your feet. This means you can scout ahead in stealth, then back off until the enemy is just inside the fog of war and then throw the trap right at them. This makes Bounty Hunter a very potent kit.
Thieves level up fast so you should get more points soon, and there are some potions and items that buff thievery skills for locks and traps. You can also use both Jan and Yoshimo if you like and dump Nalia.
I’ve been playing my comfort games since I’ve been really anxious and depressed.
- ESO
- Skyrim
- euro truck sim 2
- civilization 3
The Invincible. A short narrative-driven game based on a graphic novel. Pretty good so far.
I just finished up Spirtfarer. A sweet gentle game, that really hits the feels. To quote Yahtzee “full of light and wonder and melancholy humor, which does rather juxtapose against the underlying knowledge that our job is essentially to take our passengers one by one into the woods and ice them in the back of the head”
Just added it to my Wishlist on steam. Looks like a nice game!
Squad
I’d recommend it for anyone who played BF2/2142 and even BF3/BC2 back in the day. I really don’t like modern shooters as they are quite frankly shit in comparison but Squad is something different. Be warned though that it has its issues but when you get a good round in with decent squad mates and teamwork it is top tier.
I love BF2. I love BF2142. I want to play Squad. I can’t play Squad. It’s a me issue, 100%, but having to do voice comms with randoms in a competitive environment is something I really don’t want to deal with anymore.
The little I did manage to play was fun so support your endorsement. Anyone looking for a combined arms squad based shooter should definitely check the game out.
It’s actually the only game I feel comfortable using comms in. I have social anxiety so it did take me a few months to get used to it but now it feels natural. I’ve rarely come across anything bad either in 2k hours which is nice and it’s more social than competitive.
My short time in game wasn’t bad either, it’s just forcing myself through the initial unwillingness to and anxiety of interacting with people in such environment is a bit too much for me (especially since there’s so many other titles I can use as an excuse to not do that). As I said, it’s a “me” problem.
I’m glad you’re having fun! Old BF games and Project Reality were always a fun niche compared to titles focused solely on infantry combat so having it continue outside of DICE’s attempts is great.
It’s still one day out but if the hype keeps building I might fall victim to it and jump on Blue Prince tomorrow. Not very patient of me I know. I should be ashamed, but sometimes you just want to be part of a zeitgeist and this looks like a gem.
Playing Heaven’s Vault again. I was up to new game + 5 or so but then new computer. And there were no steam cloud saves. There are now cause I complained about it, but too late for my save, stuck on a windows 7 machine. Anyway, up to new game + 2 I think.
I don’t see this one talked about much, but when I do, I hear the story is amazing?
I personally love the game, hence the several new game +'s before I had to restart. But it’s also very niche? The gameplay is finding inscriptions (usually on items found during exploring, sometimes on walls or…other ways) and translating them into English. This is done by learning parts of the language and placing words it might be below. Also all sentences have no spaces cause whhhhyyyy would the Ancient Scribes use spaces? But new game + adds longer more complicated phrases (or shorter ones, those are also hard because like…the word “so” is used so rarely it’s hard to nail down.). The story itself follows Aliyah as she travels the rivers of the nebula to learn the past of the nebula. The first time you play you are likely to…not understand a lot. It’s very VERY easy to accidentally whoops into the point of no return area in a few ways. You can miss an entire place that has a ton of info. But that’s new game + for yoouuu! Find more places! Numbers are also hard. There is no death as far as I can tell? I’ve tried to kill Aliyah. So is it even a game if you can’t die? I know some people would say no! Also the controls for moving her are clunky, and sometimes you’ll figure out what a symbol means before the game will have it among the possible options at the bottom. “Why aren’t you giving me the word for “goddess’s” game, I knoooow that’s what that set of symbols must mean! It has the word for divine, human, and possessive!”
Heaven’s Vault is the closest thing my brain has let me have towards a hyperfixation for awhile. I’ve missed it.
Talos Principle mostly. Got it free on GOG a while back from Amazon Prim gaming. It a pretty fun puzzle game. I have had to look up a few puzzles because I was stumped, but generally trying to work my way through it without help
Some of the star puzzles are absolutely devious.
Currently slowly going through Everspace 2. The first title was a roguelite arcade space game, which is not a terrible combination, but not really what I wanted from the devs. With this sequel, they ditch the rogue grippings and expand into open-world arcade space, much like Freelancer or Darkstar, and that makes a world of difference. Story so far is nothing to write about, the dialogue and plot beats range from tedious to annoying, but it feels really damn good to fly around shooting down pilots.
Not your typical recommendation but Unnamed Space Idle has also been consuming my free time. As an avid idle game collector, I genuinely believe this might be the current top of the genre - at least in the current year. Every aspect, prestige layer and mechanic builds on top of each other, always pushing your momentum and never having a “Now you’re going to stop having fun for hours” period of upgrading.
Started playing through the Assassin’s Creed series again but completely disabling the hud, even the minimap. I did have to open the big map frequently at the beginning but you get used to it and it just feels cool having to scope out/explore an area to find and get to your target and deal with guards as they come
I will say the first game feels like it was made to be played this way, but the second game (which I’m on now) and later unfortunately don’t feel like that. Still gonna try to get through the whole series like this though
Iirc (and the story was not complete bogus) the first game was designed for it but some exec didnt like it and forced hud and minimap late in development and is why it feels easy and repetitive if you play with minimap. Wouldnt be surpirsed if ac2 then was not developed with that in mind and would explain why it doesnt work as well
I believe it. I’m just glad they kept the option to turn it all off
I just got “The Textorcist”. Really unique, being a bullet hell typing game. Has been a pretty enjoyable experience, and I’m thinking about 100%-ing it if I can.
Roadwarden
Picked that up in the Dice & Destiny current bundle. It’s a take on old school text based RPG. I like it so far. It’s really more like an interactive book which is what I was after. Playing lay back on the couch with Moonlight
Citizen Sleeper
Text based RPG too. Barely touched as it came in the bundle too. I just don’t want to run 2 story game at the same time. This one is more gamy with dice placement. There seems to be just more mechanics and things to manage. Story looks promising :D
Pacer
Dug out Pacer, an antigravity racing game I never touched for some reasons (backed on Kickstarter). Think WipEout, F-Zero, Redout… It’s cool. It scratches my WipeEout itch, but its not at the same level of polish, even if it’s made by the same people.
