Having played Warcraft again (it’s fine, talent trees are better, changing it so 90% of it is unbelievably easy is still there but Classic also exists), and back to Diablo 4 (it’s much better but still not as good as 3) I’m back on Guild Wars 2.
The new expansion gives you spears as a weapon, which are great for nearly every class. Also player housing, although I haven’t got into that yet. I foolishly started at launch with an Elementalist, the hardest and least solo class, but I’m getting the hang of most of the others.
Not going back to Elder Scrolls Online - it has the best housing, music, lore and the very worst skills and combat I have ever seen in a major MMO. Was good around the time of Summerset DLC (2018?) are pretty bad since.
Trying out so many games now I have a half decent pc to run them on (used to have a gaming laptop with a 1060 video card, which is about 8 years old).
Been playing a bit of Mechwarrior 5 Clans, basically playing in someone elses co-op campaign. They give me a mech, and off I go into battle. Pew pew! I like being able to walk thru buildings, it’s so cool (ok, it’s probably not great for the mech).
My PC is about the same age and starting to struggle. I could do with building/buying something a bit higher spec, say high-end for 2020, and catching up with a lot of the games I’ve missed.
Been playing some Returnal, which is a kind of bullet-hell 3rd person roguelite, which is totally outside my comfort zone, but actually very compelling. Great atmosphere, really nails the creepiness of endlessly dying and retrying.
Also Monster Train, which is like Slay the Spire with all of the stuff and none of the balance. Also oddly compelling, but I’m not sure if it’s good.
Found a very good site with current guides(https://www.guidesnotincluded.com). And … guess what: I need it. I completely forgot how to get rid of polluted oxygen with deodorizers. I remember some of the basics but I am already struggling with the decontamination of germy water… (starting the chlorine room in the upper left). I managed to get rid of the initial supply of germy water with the Reeds. As can be seen from the clouds of black at the bottom I need to get started with the carbon skimming but guess what: I don’t remember how to set up the closed loop that one wants.
For a first attempt back in this looks pretty okay I think. Less organized than what I used to do but I managed to avoid polluting my water supply so far. I am playing with a very small crew so everything takes a bit longer but at least oxygen and food is no trouble.
Started playing Luma Island with my 7-year-old and it’s pretty good.
She’d been asking to play Stardew Valley for a bit now, but I worried it would be a bit overwhelming and so far Luma seems to be more streamlined and less fussy, and scratches the same itch.
She’s loving it, and it’s a nice change from playing random Roblox games with her–especially since she quickly ditches the Roblox games I actually enjoy playing with her. Haha.
Wanted something for semi-realistic sword fighting and found Sword Trip, which is very fantastical in its presentation, but does at least have some realistic feeling battles in allowing you to block (with blade and scabbard) and counter strike. The fact you need to hit your opponents so many times, though, is a bit disappointing. Jabbing an enemy in the neck should have a more immediate result, IMO. Still, it is fun and one heck of a workout, as I was drenched with sweat after my first play of about 30 minutes or so.
Today I tried out Assassin’s Creed: Nexus VR, which so far does a pretty excellent job of replicating the feel of other AC games in stealth and parkour (though I am having massive difficulties swinging off of a bar to catch another one). The combat is decent, with a similar parry/riposte flow as Sword Trip, but damage is a bit more realistic, though it has all been tutorial so far, so interested to see an actual combat encounter.
All in all, I have been very pleased with my purchase of both the Quest 3S, as well as the games I have tried.
I would like to note that this is the type of game that we at one time called “Grusel-Wusel” (literal: “scary scurrying”). The name giver of this 'trope" was Total Annihilation because we used to play it so much that we dreamed of it… which makes for the scary part and TA is an RTA with unlimited units which makes for the scurrying part.
These days we generally mean games that invade your sleep. Tonight I kept building water airlocks in my brain until I finally fell sleep and dreamed of automating water cycles.
I have returned to Baldur’s Gate… after finishing Tiny Tina’s Wonderland (a very good homage to Borderlands with a few rough edges and a somewhat disappointing conclusion… making it very in line with the other Borderlands, actually… great writing, but they just really struggle to nail the landings), and then working through the last little bit of Potionomics (great start, great graphics, pretty solid writing, but the last chapter was a slog).
I picked up Marvel Spider-Man, which is apparently overwhelmingly loved, and I bounced off it real hard (so far. I haven’t even finished the tutorial yet). I’m resisting picking up Star Wars Outlaws because it’s very expensive, and I’m really actually rather enjoying BG3 right now, thank you.
Last time I played a paladin and managed to get to the titular city. I restarted because I hated having to have Asterion in my party (I mean, he’s a fine character at all, I just don’t like him) because I needed somebody to open doors and chests. Sot his time I’m playing a Bard with Sleight of Hand… still not quite as good as Asterion (the “Corridor of Death” in the Grymforge was an adventure, I tell you what), and my old paladin had a Perception of +8 or something so I’m struggling way more with noticing things, but otherwise it’s a lot of fun.
Interesting side-note: my bard took 2-weapon fighting, which is actually not a great build for a bard by default: the second weapon attack takes your bonus action, so I can’t use any of her bonus action spells (Healing, primarily), and she hasn’t unlocked a second attack yet at Level 5, sooooo… but otherwise she’s great.
Still can’t decide if I like Karlach or Shadowheart better. They’re both keen.
You really don’t need a specific character for traps/locks, but if you want one you can respec anyone to be anything rather than starting from scratch.
My honour mode play through has come to a screeching halt as I discovered a new bug making a specific boss have infinite health. So my save is halfway through a disastrous fight, waiting for a patch to save the day.
(I was playing a disgustingly evil dark urge character: most of the recruitable characters have left me or been killed, and I even drove off Asterion by accident - though not because of anything evil - and I never got to recruit Gale because I failed to pull him out of the portal!)
Don’t feed duplicants after midnight. Or they will store polluted ice in your main water supply and …
meaning that I’ve had to reload first because I accidentally unearthed some slime before I was prepared to deal with slimelung and then when I went to get some low-tech coolant wheezeworth for my “powerplant” (a single running coal generator and a second one I forgot to plug in)… forgot to take a safe path or watch for the moment that polluted ice became available as a material and uncheck it in my ice storage. Meh lost about 40 minutes of play time to those two. Teaches me to stay up long to play games.
But I now have autmated water sinks and toilets and even showers and decorated bedrooms and a chlorine room. I even did some carbon skimming which was not as complicated as I remembered?
Next up finally building an actual powerplant with a grid that isn’t contiuously trying to overload.
I finally picked up BG3 the other day as it was on sale. Played a bit of it and ditched Astarion the moment someone else showed up. Baffled at how he’s so beloved when I just find him annoying.
I liked Asterion quite a bit.
He can be annoying I know.
Still…
And he’s very useful.
Not so much in fights though he can almost one-shot some pretty big opponents.
I was Shadowheart btw. I think I would have found her extremely annoying if it wasn’t my main
My favorite fighter will always be Lae’zel. (Underground late-game spoiler) That big undead dragon in the basement? Just have her beat it to pulp BEFORE it does it’s thing. I made various attempts at that one. And she just solved the “problem”.
Still no fancy builds but I just made a little mushroom farm (they need Co2) and I have learned that I can kill the germs on slime easily by transporting it to a cold biome. And so I have begun cleaning the first swamp biome to make space. Next up generating oxygen with a self powered oxygen module aka SPOM. I have previously tried to build the SPOM and found it was quite a difficult step up. Because once I introduce it I will need to start a scheme for cooling my base. Which needs more power, which needs me to start using vents that generate endless amounts of steam or natural gas which are difficult and often need cooling and so on…
My crew is still just 6 dupes. They need far fewer resources (mostly oxygen) and so less power and I can take my time figuring things out.
