What VIDEO GAME(s) have you been playing?

For the last month or two I've tried my hand at the first two Borderlands games. I definitely like the second one better than the first, but besides that I'm not sure of much else. (I do think the second game has a more interesting introductory area, and it feels a touch more accessible to me.)

I'm generally someone who likes the ARPG hack-and-slash genre. I went through big kicks of Torchlight 2 and Grim Dawn last year, and I still pick up both games now and then. Borderlands has the same basic feedback loop, but so far the pacing feels pretty slow. FPS mechanics don't have the same pace as a click-things-til-they-die game, and the fact that enemies respawn in Borderlands makes it even grindier to go back to different locations.

That said, a couple of friends have told me (in the second game anyway) that once you get out of the introduction area it ends up ramping up in power a bit. The guns get better, characters becomes stronger, and it's more fun to just mow people down. I can see this happening, so I think I'll give the second game some more time. I do find the basic loop satisfying enough to keep playing.

Monster Train. I read enough online to think that, if I liked Slay the Spire, and if I was looking for something new that possibly advances the gameplay in worthwhile ways, to give it a go.

So far, I have really enjoyed it. The combat has been meatier, though I am unsure about whether there will be enough enemy variability for my taste over the long haul. Between each combat there are at least three ways to tweak your deck in interesting ways. Both units and spells have two enhancement slots on them, and I have found a few combinations that have made me feel clever.

I'm maybe 20hrs in on Hollow Knight and it's really pretty great. I'm mopping up stuff for the 100%, though I haven't messed with the insanely hard boss rush stuff. We'll see if I bother with that. 30+ bosses in a row with brutally hard new bosses at the end that your only get to take a try at after grinding through all the other ones... Yea I dunno. Outside of that though, it's a great hard metroidvania game with a strong From Software vibe to the world and story telling. And I love the art. Just really fun stuff all around.

Speaking of Metroidvania games,

My son got an XBOX One for Christmas and we got him a Gamepass account as another way to interact with his friends during lockdown.

I downloaded Ori and the Blind Forest and played through it like it was my job. Heavier focus on platforming an exploration than on combat. AMAZING white-knuckle escape sequences. Really tightly designed with some of the best art direction I've ever seen in a game.

Playing through the sequel now, Ori and the Will of the Wisps. It's even bigger, better, with better graphics and a little more focus on combat with more abilities and huge boss fights.

Highly recommend to anyone who likes Metroidvania games.

Ah_Pook wrote: I'm maybe 20hrs in on Hollow Knight and it's really pretty great. I'm mopping up stuff for the 100%, though I haven't messed with the insanely hard boss rush stuff. We'll see if I bother with that. 30+ bosses in a row with brutally hard new bosses at the end that your only get to take a try at after grinding through all the other ones... Yea I dunno. Outside of that though, it's a great hard metroidvania game with a strong From Software vibe to the world and story telling. And I love the art. Just really fun stuff all around.

The storytelling and environmental artistry in this is one of the few games that "gets" that part of what makes the soulborne games great. Lots of games have done the combat, learning, and challenge part pretty well.

Almost all of the content is worth doing besides the boss rush stuff, which I tapped out on too. I have a thread on this game around here that I was mostly talking to myself if in, I'll edit it in if I find it.

I too am all aboard Monster Train
It has a level of polish on par with Slay the Spire and hits the same notes in different ways.
Lots of fun ways to mix the factions. Really like the game so far.

All Aboooaaard the Monster Train for points south!


I picked it up today and completed a run with a couple multistrike daemons and boosted train stewards.


Here is my run challenge: monstertrain://challenge/IntervalScoopWhereas
I'm not sure how that link works.

Cheers

I bought FIFA 20 to ease stress, I'm a huge football fan but it has been 3-4 years since I bought an edition. It's quite good, I've been playing the career mode as a defender (RB). That mode always makes you think a lot more deeply about the game as it is actually played. Realizing the positioning decisions and when to make a run and when it's too risky to despite potentially creating a great chance is sort of a weirdly cerebral activity.

Started up a new game of Civ VI, this time as Germany/Frederick. Had a great starting space, with three city states right on my border and an oddly subdued Chandragupta with a single city. I now have a whole continent to myself and I'm still in the Classical Era.

I like how Civ V and VI specialize the leaders more, but the downside is that success, especially at higher difficulties, is really tied to starting position. I actually respawned my starting space twice to get something playable. I'm no great shakes at Civ VI (I typically play at Prince level) but it's obvious that as you amp up difficulty you need to kind of have a Goldilocks starting spot. Those details add up bigtime.

I still need to pick up the climate change expansion to VI. I'll be interested how their new DLC pack strategy goes, it seems like they have seen want Paradox does with live games with continuous DLC and want to follow that model.

I liked the Gathering Storm expansion a lot, though the climate change component only really starts becoming a thing when you get into more long-haul games. I see it a lot with Science victories especially, since those have so much more of an emphasis on production, and Space Race stuff can take a long time to get rolling.

Not sure the Diplomatic victory condition actually works that well, but I'm not great at seeing my way through big strategic stuff very often. I sometimes need help to understand how to navigate that kind of thing.

Still haven't gotten the Maya/Gran Colombia expansion, but it's just a matter of time. The Apocalypse Mode sounds really fun especially.

I'm looking forward to the ps4 version of civ6+expansions being on sale for a reasonable price eventually.

Ah_Pook wrote: Finished Doom Eternal, kinda hated it. They buried the good stuff from Doom 2016 under infinite piles of chaotic enemy spam, so many subsystems that you forget what you're doing, tons of awful platforming, and a novels worth of the worst most poorly told story I've come across in a while. Such a huge letdown after Doom 2016, one of my very favorite games of recent memory.

We just finished Doom Eternal after getting sick of it in early April and putting it down for almost two months, and other than your opinion on the platforming (I enjoyed almost all of it, especially the wall climbing), I agree with everything else you said. One thing that stands out when people talk about DE is that most of them have a weapon or modification they forget to use, or never use. Why? There are just too damned many. I like the Flame Belcher, Blood Punch and the Crucible, but two mods per weapons is too much. Drop the combat shotgun's autofire mod, the chain gun's shield, etc.

Civ6 was FREE on the Epic Games platform last week.

This week Borderlands 2 and its prequel are FREE. Get on the case boys and girls.

My multiplayer Terraria game is fizzling out. My spouse feels like she doesn't get to do much because of her lack of 2d platformer skill, so when we go our separate ways I end up getting into the interesting biomes and such and seeing and doing cool things. I get it but it's kind of a drag to wanting to play more.