Patient Gamers

I just found Voxel Eras

I got sidetracked this last week. The plan was twofold: finish Chrono Ark (first ending) and finish Ninja Gaiden 4 to get ready for the DLC that dropped a day ago.

Instead I got completely hooked on Rise of the Ronin. It's been a hot minute since I played some Open World Slop and it is hitting me just right. With all the shit going on right now it's been pleasant to have some mind numbing collect-a-thon gameplay, at least thus far.

The comparisons to Ghost of Tsushima are very natural to make, but honestly I'm personally preferring Ronin. GoT wins in graphics and presentation, but the combat in Ronin is a lot more fun and deep. Both use stance switching in a sort of rock-paper-scissors system, but Ronin has a lot more skill expression given that the stance relationships only matter defensively. You counter the enemy stance while parrying, but you're free to use whatever when going on the offensive. I find this much more satisfying than the GoT system of "pick the right stance and win", and Ronin also has a lot more active skills to use, especially when you start chaining stance and weapon switching mid combat.

In terms of writing I am still fairly early in the story, but I like the use of authentic history and real historical characters and one thing again where I prefer Ronin over GoT is that there is a bit more humour, levity and charm to the characters. GoT is fine with its writing but everything is so serious and dour all the time and delivered in an almost monotone way that it just wore me out over the playthrough.

I started playing Transformers Earthspark Expedition this week. Its not a fancy game but its been pretty fun. Its maybe a ten hour game though to 100%.

NullpoMino so I could prepare once I acquired Tetris The Grandmaster - Absolute Eye

A different kind of patience - I'm torn between riding out the RAM apocalypse and upgrading my PC now. I don't have FOMO for many things, but I kinda want a faster beefier PC.

Need for Speed Underground 2, the old PC edition with widescreen fix patches using Wine.

Playing Assassin's Creed Valhalla via Steam Link on my TV, good fun. I've been learning Icelandic over the last few years, and was surprised that the Norse background NPC's actually speak it! Very cool to be able to understand the background conversations, quite immersive too.

(As far as we know Icelandic is essentially identical to old Norse, spoken across Scandinavia a thousand years ago.)

Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 :)

Stellaris. I somehow ended up buying all the DLCs I was missing, and now all other games have been put on hold.

I got my fill of Tokkyuu Shirei - Solbrain for now so I'm back to jumping between multiple other titles on my Deck at the moment.

The main focus is the return of my Ridge Racer fixation. I'm back to playing Ridge Racer 2 (PSP one) but I also tried Ridge Racer Type 4 and Ridge Racer 7. RRT4 still holds up rather well, it feels good to play and the presentation is top notch (especially its fantastic intro). Can't say I like it more than RR2 (PSP) however a big part of that is the fact that the latter is simply a more complete package due to its content.
Can't say much about RR7 as I only tried 2 races so far to see how it'll run emulated. It runs but I've got some issues with RPCS3 not using all the power on my desktop which affects the performance. I'll have to play it on my Steam Deck instead, I guess.

The second series I'm playing right now is The Legend of Linkle: Breath of the Wild (BotW, just modded). I played it about a year or so ago but didn't really feel it at the time and dropped it for other stuff. I now decided to start from scratch and with refreshed attitude instead. I’m having a bit more fun and feel less pressure to progress this time so there’s a chance I’ll be able to finish it - we’ll see how it goes. At the very least, I’d love a proper Zelda game with Linkle as a protagonist. Heck, I’d settle for a decent knockoff honestly.

Fable 2

I'm a few hours in and its a real throwback to 2009 or whenever as I haven't played it since launch. It feels very familiar but I don't really remember much about the game. Once thing to note is that after playing Fable Anniversary, Fable 2 definitely has a vibe of being brightly coloured world but often times quite bland with nothing to show in the open world.

Anbernic RG35XXH

Lots of short and random sessions on my handheld. Colin McRae 2.0, PSO, WWE No Mercy and many more. Dreamcast isn't really viable but some games can be playable with some tweaking. It's great for PSX and below though.

Factorio! It's been on my wishlist for ages. But I didn't know that it never ever goes on sale, so I was waiting for nothing. I bought it now and it's great! My first factory is running pretty wel so far. I'm coming up on oil now. I just need to talk to the local HOA about my expansion plans 🔥

I've been playing Stardew while I lay on the kids floor waiting for them to fall asleep.

I will always recommend rimworld, it's a very open colony sim set in the far future on a planet where a lot of stuff has regressed, it's one of the more moddable games around now so you can make it what you want. Lots of freedom to play how you want, it's a bit like the sims except you can have anything from a cosy farm to a machine-worshipping murder cult.

No Man's Sky. They recently released a new update where we're garbage collectors. The sub reddit 50/50 either loved or hated it. Got me interested enough to get back to it.

I just started Cubivore. It's fascinatingly weird, deceptively simple at first, but I feel like there's some complexity growing beneath the surface.

You start as a weird little cubic pig, and you have this one square flap coming off the cube on a hinge that helps you move around, and a mouth. So you go around eating everything smaller than you. And the things your size you can take, you rip their meat flaps off (phrasing) and eat them to mutate. When you kill a boss, you get better meat that unlocks big abilities, and your pig gets to mate and die. Then you start playing as pig's offspring, who now has an extra flap and more ways to mutate which put those flaps in configurations that make you better at running, evading, fighting, or defense.

Also your pig does a lot of oddly philosophical ruminating between areas.

Flipping between Tomb Raider Chronicles and Spiderman 2.

Core Keeper. They just had a big patch with a new section and biome. Started fresh save to run through it. Fun game. Still desperately needs an option or mod for “prevent ability to kill farm animals”.

Tales and Tactics. It's an auto battler like dota underlords where you merge chumps, give them items and set them on a table to beat each other off. Heavy reliance on RNG.

GTA San Andreas

I've been meaning to play silent slayer for a while and i finally gave it a shot this week! It's a VR game where you have to kill vampires in their sleep by disarming magic barriers around their coffins and silently delivering the death blow. I've seen reviews saying their hands where too shaky and couldn't progress but i didn't have that issue at all. I did have a bit of an issue when my controller's tracking would drift and snap back in place at the worst moments but i don't think i died from that. It was a short but very fun experience! Just challenging enough that it made me lock in but was smooth sailing most of the time as i took my time to work steadily and with precision.

Fallout 4. Added 150+ mods on it and replaying it again. Of course thanks to the TV show.