What are you playing? (2022 Edition)

nicked on 15/4/2022 at 07:56

Picked up (https://store.steampowered.com/app/1590910/Forgive_Me_Father/) https://store.steampowered.com/app/1590910/Forgive_Me_Father/ and got exactly what I asked for - a really great retro FPS. It's basically a Cthulhu-themed Doom clone with a great comic-book art style and really satisfying shooting. I had a few gripes with it, some of which have already been patched since I finished it, but on the whole, highly recommended if you like this kinda thing.

Thirith on 16/4/2022 at 17:57

Just finished Horizon Zero Dawn - fun, even if underneath the world building, it's pretty conventional open world fare - and got started on Tunic, which I've been looking for ever since reading the reviews. I immediately like how, in spite of its cutesy graphics, it creates a genuine sense of mystery that reminds me of Fez, of all things.

henke on 17/4/2022 at 18:05

Been playing a lot of Insurmountable this weekend. I played this roguelite mountaineering game last year when it came out, but I was kinda so-so on it. The random events got repetetive fast and the whole campaign-structure was very barebones, luckily a big 2.0 Update just got released which improves both those things. The storytelling is much stronger now (it's kinda a Lost-ish tale of a mysterious mountain with anomalies and time-loops and whatnot) and it has a new in-between-missions hub where you can upgrade your characters and pick equipment for the next mission or sidemission. There's more variety in the mountains and events now as well.

[video=youtube;SSd8jbpVQAw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSd8jbpVQAw[/video]

I was kinda lukewarm on this after the initial release, but with this update I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this to anyone who likes exploration and adventure and trying not to freeze to death or go insane on a great big mountain. It's fun! :thumb:

oh yeah and it's free right now on the Epic Store

Tomi on 19/4/2022 at 10:51

I've been playing Rebel Galaxy (thanks faetal!), a fun space arcade game from 2015.

In theory this should be my dream game - a grand space adventure where you can do whatever you want to do, and go wherever you want to go. There's exploration, bounty hunting, trading, mining, big space battles. There's quite a lot going on, but it's still very repetitive, even boring at times. There are like five different types of missions, and you grind those until you're rich enough to upgrade your ship so that you can get on with the story missions. Trading might be a good way to get rich too, but I haven't figured out yet how to get good at it. Mining is even more boring than it sounds, thanks to the wonky camera, the awkward UI, and the annoyingly impractical targeting system. Those three affect many other things in this game as well.

But damn, Rebel Galaxy is addictive as hell. I just can't stop playing those repetitive missions, the game somehow manages to pull off that good old "one more turn/mission" thing. :D There are some massive space battles, and even though you spend most of the time just circling around and watching the automated turrets do their job as things blow up, they're still plenty of fun. I wouldn't mind a bit more micro-management though, more control over my ship. I'm also a bit disappointed by the lack of random encounters and events in the game - the predictable "ambushes" at cargo drop points or whatever aren't particularly random or even exciting.

I've already played this game for quite a few hours, and I've only just left the first galaxy behind. The ship upgrade loop seems to start all over again in galaxy #2, so I wonder if I've already seen pretty much everything that Rebel Galaxy has to offer. There are still at least ten more galaxies to visit, so I doubt that I'll ever get to see the end of this game. It's been a fun ride though, and it has satisfied my thirst for a fun space adventure at least a bit.

Has anyone played Rebel Galaxy Outlaw?

Thirith on 19/4/2022 at 10:55

I'm probably about halfway through Tunic, and while I'm enjoying it a lot, I would definitely say that it frontloads its best bits. It's a solid, immensely charming (and at times hard-as-nails) game, but the things that are most surprising and intriguing come early, and then the game doesn't necessarily build on those so much as just keep delivering the same things. It's all crafted very well, but it doesn't have the sustained sense of discovery that Fez had.

henke on 23/4/2022 at 16:21

This weekend I'm playing through Thief 2014.

For the third time.

For some reason.

Aja on 24/4/2022 at 00:43

I played through it twice myself back in the day. Even though it was deficient in so many ways, I enjoyed the atmosphere and core gameplay.

nicked on 24/4/2022 at 17:33

I have been playing Teardown, which just came out of early access. It's something special, this game.
It somehow manages to look visually highly realistic, despite the chunky voxels that the world is made from. It's more like a photo that's had a mosaic filter applied rather than the 3D pixel art look I would normally associate with voxels.
The destruction, physics and effects are as close to real simulation as you can get with voxels, meaning some of the dynamic situations that can occur are incredible.
So it would have been impressive enough as a straightforward destruction sandbox, but that wouldn't have appealed to me particularly. I like my games to have some purpose or narrative thread to keep me engaged. But Teardown succeeds here as well, with its series of increasingly challenging heist missions where you take jobs from various GTA-style reprobates.
Some of the tougher missions are like a chaotic, destruction-based Hitman game - you'll need to carefully plan a route and set up everything you need in advance so that you can race round the map grabbing everything you need once the alarm goes off.
It's hard to compare this game to anything else, it feels really quite unique in what it's achieved.

WingedKagouti on 24/4/2022 at 19:05

I've been playing some Insurmountable (recent EGS freebie) these last days and from what I've read it got major overhaul recently where you now have an actual campaign instead of a bunch of "not really connected climbs". It's been quite engrossing so far and I spent 6 hours on my "I should at least try this game out" session. Having to plan the equipment for each climb depending on the specific factors and tasks as well as the character you take makes for some different climbs. And even if you start seeing the same events over and over, you aren't guaranteed the same outcome for each option, which can have an impact on the rest of the climb.

I also like that there's a choice in how you climb, do you take a faster but more energy heavy route or do you go for the energy efficient path that takes longer. Take a "small" detour to grab an encounter and spend some extra energy for a potential benefit. Or ignore all distractions and focus on the goal alone and hope you have the resources required. This is a game where the resource management feels good instead of just being a bunch of bars you have to keep up.

EvaUnit02 on 24/4/2022 at 19:50

I finished replaying Quake 4 the other day. Really little sci-fi campaign which echoes both James Cameron's Aliens and early Call of Duty cinematic war campaigns. The infamous Stroggification sequence still has the impact it had back in the day.

Currently following it up a cool little Q4 campaign mod called (https://www.moddb.com/mods/false-dawn) "False Dawn", it's short but the level design is very good. The modder went on to design levels for AAA games Watch Dogs 2 and Watch Dogs: Legion.