Weekly Recommendations Thread: What are you playing this week? : patientgamers

[–] Jayjader@jlai.lu 2 points 5 hours ago

Played a bit more of the Lizardmen campaign in Total War: Warhammer 2 (easy campaign difficulty and normal battle difficulty). It feels really good when an in-depth-planned deployment and battle plan turns a predicted "valiant defeat" into a "close victory". The constant tension between expansion and territorial defense is surprisingly hard to balance, especially with the "main quest" events that spawn Chaos armies a few turns' march from your capital. The most frustrating so far is how the option to confederate with other Lizardmen factions only seems to be possible if you have no preexisting diplomatic ties - as soon as you sign even a pact of non-aggression the option simply disappears from the diplomacy menu despite good relations/standing.

I've also been playing a bit of Old School RuneScape. The quest line(s) involving the Humans Against Monsters association hit a bit deeper given current events IRL...

I'm thinking of giving Project Zomboid another try. I wish I had someone to play it with, zombie apocalypse games are much more fun when you can roleplay as a group of survivors (and diversify your skills).

[–] lablakelydoink@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Chugging along through NG+ in Elden Ring. Just beat the Fire Giant and am messing around in the sewers of Leyndell before I

spoiler

burn this shit down.

I'm pretty sure I'm over leveled because things haven't really been that challenging until maybe around the Mountaintops of the Giants, but the novelty of laying a beat down on everything that caused me grief during my first playthrough has yet to wear off.

[–] BurntWits@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago

You’re making good progress! There’s nothing more fun than obliterating a boss in NG+ that gave you trouble in NG.

[–] Goldholz@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 1 day ago

I havent played anything in so long because i dont place time on it. I spend all my time modding or atleast having the code open and procrastinating

[–] khannie@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I played a little Black Mesa definitive edition. Was fun. I'm not getting much/ any gaming time these days unfortunately.

[–] BurntWits@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I loved Black Mesa when I played it. I never played the original believe it or not, and it was a great first experience.

Yeah I’m with you on that, I don’t have hardly any time these days for games. I’ve got a baby at home, and I’m up for a promotion to a management position so I’m extra busy at work right now trying to impress the bosses, which unfortunately means later shifts most of the time. That probably won’t go away much if I get the manager job, which is the one aspect I’m not looking forward to. Oh well.

[–] khannie@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

That's a tough one. The ol' competing priorities. Congratulations on the new baby though! I love babies.

[–] BurntWits@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago

Thank you! Yeah being a dad is incredible. I love babies and kids in general, but having one of your own is just so awesome. I just wish I could spend more time at home. I’m very jealous of my wife!

[–] B0NK3RS@lemmy.world 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Citizen Sleeper

It's been a couple years since my first playthrough but enjoying it just as much this time. It's definitely a solid top 10 game for me so I really need to buy the sequel after I'm done.

[–] PennyRoyal@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 days ago

Likewise

[–] rainwall@piefed.social 8 points 2 days ago

Finished Hades 2 recently. Amazing game, amazing story, art and acting are superb.

[–] zerofk@lemmy.zip 7 points 2 days ago

I just finished Syberia 1 and its remake in parallel. Still a great game.

I’m now moving on to Syberia 2, while also trying to find the time to continue Baldur’s Gate 2 and Icewind Dale.

[–] MagnificentSteiner@lemmy.zip 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I'm back to Terraria for the umpteenth time. This time a thrower class with the Thorium mod. Currently building an alpine resort with a ski jump as my base before entering hardmode. Next up is starting the Metro FPS series.

[–] paultimate14@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Just finished up the Alan Wake 1 DLC, and the American Nightmare spinoff game. I really loved Control and had decided to go back and play the Alan Wake games. The base Alan Wake game had some good ideas, but the controls and balancing were clunky and the combat was tedious. The DLC's got better, using the dark/light mechanics in much more interesting ways. American Nightmare had controls that felt much better and a neat structure of more open, less linear levels. Still nowhere near as great as Control was imo.

So now I'm playing Disco Elysium. I had tried to start it a few times and bounced off- it's great, but a TON of heavy text and political theory. I managed to make some headway a couple months ago when I was traveling with my Steam Deck. Figured now is as good for a time as any to try to beat it at least once. It is truly great, and I think needs to be in the conversations for best game of all time. But it also takes a lot of energy and a specific mood to play.

Another game I tried to go back to was Hellblade. I'm, idk, about a third of the way through I guess? First started over a year ago. I love the initial concept of the character's psychosis manifesting in-game, but it seems like 90% of the gimmick was done in the opening sequence and the game got incredibly repetitive after that. It's so slow it's hard to play. My hands hurt after a bit because I find myself pushing on the joysticks harder, pushing on the "jog" button harder, trying to make Senua move. It's really frustrating to have a puzzle mentally solved but needing to spend 5 minutes moving her slow ass around to execute the solution. It's a good thing exploration is pretty useless because it also takes forever. The combat is also boring and repetitive: the enemies take way too many hits and there are way too many of them. Even just starting the game, sitting through all the stupid splash screens and the same trigger warning is tedious and dumb. I feel like I've put dozens of hours banging my head against this game, but when I look at steam I've only put in a little over 5. I think I might retire the game and just watch a lore video of it instead.

[–] Jayjader@jlai.lu 1 points 14 hours ago

[Disco Elysium] takes a lot of energy and a specific mood to play

Totally! In my experience you need to be depressed, in no small part because of People, and waiting on the final thing that will push you over the edge and make you give up on them entirely, for the game to best resonate with you. You need to love Humanity and yet be weary of her, to have hope and yet be terminally cynical about anything good ever happening.

It's almost like the game was designed as therapeutic deprogramming for bitter activists. Then again, I might just be projecting my own experience and perspective.

[–] Coelacanth@feddit.nu 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I think you're spot on about Alan Wake, it has a cool story and some good ideas but feels pretty clunky to play. The sameness of the levels doesn't help, either. American Nightmare plays well if you can overlook the low budget of being an Xbox Live Marketplace game. Plus it has some cool manuscript pages and lore elements and Ilka Villi absolutely slays as Mr Scratch in the FMV clips. Very interested to hear your thoughts on AW2. For me it's by far the best game Remedy ever made, and probably in my all-time top 3.

Shame you're not clocking with Hellblade, it's a game I really enjoyed but it does have its shortcomings. For me all the elements kind of worked, and even though the puzzle mechanics weren't amazing I allowed the game to be carried by the concept pretty far. The whole "seeing patterns where there are none in reality" being another manifestation of psychosis was neat. Also if you do want to finish it, the game is very short so there is probably less of it left than you think if you want to push through. I did personally like the ending, but maybe not worth it if it's not clicking.

What made you bounce off Disco Elysium before? I agree with you that it's probably the best game of all time, but I also do see people bounce off it frequently. Always interested in hearing people's thoughts on it.

[–] paultimate14@lemmy.world 2 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

AW2 is going to be a while. Not only because I'm a patientgamer, but because it was published by Epic and I have no interest in setting up an account and dealing with their launcher, plus jumping through all the hoops to be able to play it on my Steam Deck. I've already switched a couple of my household's PCs to Linux, and I'll probably do the rest eventually. Maybe I'll pick up the PS5 version some day, but that severely limits the different ways I can play it. I might get FBC Firebreak if it ever goes on sale- I don't play a whole lot of multiplayer games generally but I'm interested to see if they put any lore in there.

Disco Elysium is great, but at times the "gameplay" so basically just reading a polysci textbook. It's a very heavy game that deals with a lot of heavy topics. Often I'm tired of processing all of the terrible things happening in the world and look to videogames as an escape, and Disco Elysium is up there as one of the worst games for that lol. Even just seeing the ZA/UM logo starts to get me going from thinking about what happened to the studio and the main creators of the game.

There's also a lot of friction that just comes from it being a text-heavy game. I had my retina surgically re-attached in one eye a few years ago- it was largely successful compared to going blind in that eye, but that eye is not as good at focusing at screens further away. Action games like Alan Wake and Hellblade are fine on my living room TV, but for Disco Elysium I mostly need to use my Deck or some other screen that can be closer to my face.

Another factor is sobriety. I feel like this doesn't get talked about in gaming communities a lot- a lot of gamers are children, or adults who are sober for a variety of reasons. I'm adult who does not have any of those reasons, and even a medical marijuana card for my arthritis. I have a full-time job, a house to maintain, and several relationships to maintain. So on the rare occasion that I have an evening to myself to enjoy, I often want to get high (responsibly) and play some videogames. It's kind of a difficulty customization too: often the difficulty settings in-games are just boring number changes that make enemies bullet sponges. So I'm more entertained by playing on Easy and getting high than playing on Hard sober. Disco Elysium, for as much as it features drug-use in its world and gameplay, is nearly impossible for me to play while high. It's not a huge deal, but it often means that other games are just more appealing when I'm planning any given evening.

[–] Coelacanth@feddit.nu 1 points 4 hours ago

AW2 is worth it. Don't deprive yourself of the experience, it's a memorable one. I understand the hoops though, but trust me it's worth holding your nose and getting an Epic account. It's still to this day my one and only purchase on Epic, and I don't regret it one bit.

All that makes sense with Disco Elysium. Also I'm sorry about your eye, that must be an awful thing to go through. Very understandable with the eye fatigue and reading though. There is a lot of it, even after the voice acting update.

As far as heavy themes and all, I can't say much without spoiling stuff but I will say this: the game somehow does strike a strange kind of balance where it ends up feeling oddly hopeful, even in the face of nihilism. It slightly depends on how you play it, granted. The Communism playthrough for example is a lot more hopeful than the Fascism run (although the latter is also very interesting and doesn't play out the way you'd think).

I struggle with depression and self loathing and being unable to move on from the past and have struggled with addiction in the past, and Disco Elysium is one of the most cathartic experiences I've had in any medium of culture.

[–] Habahnow@sh.itjust.works 7 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Dota 2 still. I still suck, but I hope I'm slowly learning.

I have friends that I play with that make it enjoyable, despite the smurfs and bad matchmaking.

The monster x Hunter event is pretty cool

[–] RebekahWSD@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago

Doing well in Animal Crossing New Horizons, what with the huge spike day on the stalks, made money before immediately spending it on a castle tower thing.

Also most of the island is just flowers now, which will be a problem for trying to fit in the castle tower and the fountain I also bought.

[–] Essence_of_Meh@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Daggerfall Unity

Still playing and following through with my plan to finally do some "adventurous" missions.

It's pretty much a full-on role-play of a weak person tasked with various "hero" jobs. Need sneaking? I can do that. Fighting weak enemies? Sure! Get something from a dungeon filled with powerful hostiles? I... can try sprinting through? Things can be a bit difficult at times when playing a non-combat character (until now) so I ended up bailing on few of the quests but I'm slowly improving.

It's an interesting way of playing compared to the usual power fantasy. It also helps me to finally get used to the approach of "failing is fun" - not the same as "losing" since I keep going instead of starting from scratch but dealing with consequences (however minimal in this game) is something I'd like to expand to other games I play.
It's not an easy switch after years of being "the chosen one" but I'm getting there.

Leisure Suit Larry: Reloaded

Continuing with my point and click adventures I decided to try Leisure Suit Larry. I got it for free on GOG some years ago but never really gave it a shot since I didn't think it was up my alley. Here are some brief thoughts:

Art looks nice but the art style is very inconsistent. I'm sure it's intended but it it doesn't always work in my opinion.
It could really use subtitles. There are no separate volume sliders and dialogue lines can get lost under the music (there's an option to turn off the music but that's not a great choice either for me).
Gameplay is simple but enjoyable, there are no dead ends according to the tutorial but you can absolutely screw yourself by running out of money. You can (and later have to) get more through gambling but that's not really a viable solution without save scumming.
Writing is... not my cup of tea but it's fine for what it is. Constant narration can be a little annoying at times.

All in all, it was fun enough but I don't think I'll be checking out other games in the series. I'm glad to scratch this off my backlog at least.

Shadowrun Returns

I was a little worried since I haven't played this kind of RPG (let alone a Shadowrun title) in a long time but it's been pretty straightforward so far. Combat is simple and enjoyable even without a proper tutorial. I appreciate the amount of skill and item checks so far, leading to multiple ways of solving problems. Not all of them, obviously, but it's still common enough to be noticeable.

Art style and graphics in general hold up really well, so does audio. I also like the writing so far, especially how pleasant the conversations can be - just two people being courteous towards each other, without the need to act edgy just because cyberpunk. The only thing I don't particularly care about is the mix of sci-fi and magic. Not that I hate it, it just does nothing for me despite being a pretty unique approach to the genre.

So yeah, it's cool and I'm enjoying it so- What's that? Unbeatable just released? Yeah... I'm gonna have to take a break from Shadowrun for a bit. I'll be back once I'm done doing crime.

[–] Coelacanth@feddit.nu 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I also played Leisure Suit Larry: Reloaded I think last year or the year before and have similar thoughts. I know it's a famous title/franchise and I wanted to check it out, and it was pretty much what I expected. I really hated the forced gambling-via-savescumming but it was otherwise an alright point and click puzzler with hit-or-miss humour.

I have half an idea of playing Love For Sail too at some point as that's supposedly the series high point, but it's not exactly a high priority.

[–] Essence_of_Meh@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I don't mind the writing that much since not everything has to be up my alley and, more importantly, it's a remake of a game from 1987 - different time, different industry. I do however think they could update it a bit more in terms of gameplay at least. Maybe not completely reworking the moon logic behind some puzzles but getting rid of the option to hard lock your progress would be enough to improve the experience quite a bit, at least for me.

[–] Coelacanth@feddit.nu 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

The hard lock is particularly egregious I agree. I also dislike moon logic but I chalk that up to "those were the times" as well. Back in those days strategy guides and phone-based help lines for adventure/puzzle games were common and making games inscrutable and puzzles impossibly idiotic were seen as a value-add to extend playtime on your purchase.

As far as the humour, one thing that stood out to me (besides the multitude of variously juvenile sex jokes) was that there was a little bit of a mean-spirited streak in the writing. At the end of the day Larry is not a bad or evil guy, he is a naive loser. And a large part of the game is kind of making fun of him for that, and something about that doesn't sit right with me.

[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Shadowrun Returns

Check out "Cyber Knights: Flashpoint"

Early access and super cheap, gets almost weekly updates that won't break a save.

Very, very similar. But much deeper and if we're patient and support it could be bg3 level.

Like, seriously the only other time I've enjoyed an early access was bg3. It's deep enough to run it like a rouge light. Especially since if you go a couple months without touching there's a bunch of new content when you come back.

[–] Essence_of_Meh@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

I'm mostly focusing on my backlog for now (except for already mentioned Unbeatable) but I'll keep this in mind. Thanks for letting me know about it!

[–] Endymion_Mallorn@kbin.melroy.org 5 points 2 days ago

This week, other than the standby of OpenTTD, I'm doing some RetroAchievements on Game Boy and GBC.

[–] shittydwarf@piefed.social 5 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

It's been an early access for years but I've been having an insane amount of fun with Cosmoteer there has been a recent update adding thermal mechanics to the game

[–] HerbalGamer@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 days ago

AC Origins and Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, which snuck up on me when I got out of prison somehow

[–] Dariusmiles2123@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 days ago

Mafia Definitive Edition on Steam Deck it works well except you can’t see what button you’re supposed to press.

Once you know the controls you can just enjoy the superb atmosphere and surprizingly great gunfights!

[–] S_H_K@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 2 days ago

I'm configuring a Samsung a55.for only gaming. I'll restart Vagrant Story a crazy action rpg from Squaresoft in PSX.

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 3 points 2 days ago

finally got onto the mountain shrine in ff12 and just finished the final boss of the shrine of miriam.

Patient Gamers