I'm playing the remastered edition of Red Dead Redemption 1/Undead Nightmare. Loved it like 10 years ago and im thoroughly enjoying my replay. I also picked up a copy of The Outer Worlds which I'm looking forwards to playing for the first time when I finish RDR/UN.
I just started playing Rise of Nations again. It's hard to believe the game is 21 years old, but it's still a hell of a lot of fun.
I noticed Detroit: Become Human was on sale on Steam. It's been on my "maybe" list for a while. I've heard good things, but also the game is 90% cutscenes with quick time events, and 10% basic gameplay... After playing through once, I agree with the consensus in the reviews: it has flaws but god damn is it a good game. Although, considering I live where it takes place, some things were annoying. It's Detroit-ish, but feels a bit off. It's like they took an incomplete Detroit and filled in the gaps with NYC and LA DNA. Although, given the plot, it's plausible Detroit could be similar to what's in the game in 2038. There's one inaccuracy I can't suspend disbelief on: In one chapter, the objective is to go to Ferndale and find "Jericho." Things open at a train staton, and "Ferndale" looks nothing like Ferndale; there weren't even any pride flags. Ferndale should have pride flags. Eventually, I learn that "Jericho" isn't a person, but an old ship in an abandoned dry dock. Ferndale does not have any drydocks, but maybe they put in a canal or something. Then, I see the Ambassador Bridge in the background... Apparently, sometime between now and 2038, they renamed River Rouge to Ferndale, and the original Ferndale... fuck em, I guess...
https://krajzeg.itch.io/solitomb So this is an interesting solitaire you can play around with in your browser. Clearing straights and flushes gets you bonus powerups you can use to kill more enemies. The enemies get fancier on later levels. I think "reasonable" mode is hard enough.
Once I got things reasonably figured out, my biggest problem was maintaining enough attack to kill everything that needed killing. This run I had a heal spell plus a free spell to convert potions to attack and shield power, which synergized to the point that HP was no concern and I always had plenty of attack available.
I just finished another run in Monkey City. I have gotten all the buildings and upgrades. Level 40 is inevitable but involves a but of a grind of clearing very repetitive tiles for no improvement. The replay value of Monkey city is good IMO because you can certainly make it much more efficient and use events much more wisely. The fireworks and halloween events are great ways to get a boost of city cash as long as you do not use a lot of bloonstones. Contested territory is a great way to earn up a lot of boosts, bonus monkeys, and crates. The progression of monkeys becomes better as you realize the phases of the game, and which monkeys are worth it. I alsao keep out of regular PvP as it is a worthless annoyance. CT is the better way to engage others IMO. I have been playing this for years and I always seem to have it in the background. It has a decent time sink to it, and always has a progression to be involved in until you max out all the advancements.
Last of Us "part 1," ported to PC. The graphics are a bit rough on my old video card, but the tears still work.
Back playing Spider-Man Remastered (on PC, previously played on PS4) as trying to decide whether to get the Miles Morales one (actually, just checked Steam at it was 50% off so have nabbed it) and then keep an eye out for pricing when Spider-Man 2 comes to PC end of January. Still not happy with the new face for Peter in Remastered but sadly I can't get the Vortex mods to work that put the old face back. Rest of the game is as fun and heartbreaking as I remember. Still a better plot than most of the films.
I didn't enjoy MM as much as SM1 but i played it pretty much straight after getting all the Achievements on SM and its a whole lot of the same thing, I suspect if I had played a few games in between I may have enjoyed it quite a lot more and it's been a few years now and may be a good time to give it a re run.
I think Solitomb's added a few things since I last got sucked into it. Razzin-frazzin' damage reduction stone guys (they're fun actually). I beat it on the second "regular" difficulty today. Tried out the nightmare difficulty and whoa, that's a lot of HP to whittle down.
Has anyone play stellaris? I want to pay it but just getting started seems to take more time than my attention allows.
As I mentioned many moons ago, I played Stars! growing up, which gave me a foothold into understanding what to do in Stellaris. But yeah, there's a lot of random events and appeasing the population and dialog boxes in Stellaris. Personally I'd appreciate being able to turn the social stuff off and just go forth and conquer as an unquestioned tyrant, but whatcha gonna do?
After playing through Red Dead Redemption 2, I decided to give Red Dead Online a try, and I've decided it's fun. Some people are dicks and modders are annoying, but both aren't difficult to deal with. Also, because this game has both suspenders and bowler hats, I can do this: Now I just need to posse up with my three droogs and get sharpened up for the ultraviolence. Unfortunately there are no codpieces or false eyelashes. Although I might be able to approximate the codpiece using some chaps. The best I can do for the eyelashes would be a monocle or eyepatch, both of which are expensive and still locked for my character.
Defeated Solitomb on Tough and unlocked the 4th class. I was fortunate to get my favored class with some favorite powers that synergized well. Somehow I only screwed up working around the skeleton mages + splinterslime once. Didn't think I was going to close out the last floor, but I was closer to finishing than I thought and I gutted out the last few kills. I am *not* going for Nightmare difficulty any time soon. Tough is already proper roguelike difficulty for me.
Tried out Skyling: Garden Defense today. It's in the Q*Bert / Pacman genre but with greenery and cats. Good handling of movement in a tile-based game (your character can move within a tile a bit but won't be left hanging between tiles to get hit on either one). Definitely a little challenging. Still figuring out how to manipulate the chompers.
Opened up Cloud Gardens. You take a plot and fill it with junk that grows plants to make an overgrown abandoned urban scene. No cats (yet) but there are birds. Runs very nicely on my machine. I stay away from stuff like the Sims and Minecraft because it's easy for me to get sucked in to this kind of thing, but the stages here are bite-sized and the player's control is not nearly pinpoint enough to encourage wasting hours getting everything "exactly right". You can tweak the lighting a lot though. Abandoned parking area: A nice little evening porch for someone: And then it expands to let you fill in what they have below:
Fallout 3. Took some doing to get my Steam GOTY edition running, and then I almost broke it with console commands.
I've been playing American Truck Simulator. I've been waiting on the Ohio expansion most of all, but that's probably a year away, as they're moving west to east and Iowa is up next. That said, there's just something relaxing about hauling your cargo through the heart of Oklahoma, corn fields all around you as you fly down the open road at 65 mph, playing classic rock on your radio, when suddenly drops of rain start hitting your windshield, so you turn on your wipers, as the patter of rain hits the roof of your semi-truck, becoming stronger until you hear thunder and a streak of lightning moves across the horizon. It's a hell of a game for someone who, in real life, almost collided with a restaurant while in a semi-truck.
https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/puzzles/js/undead.html This is an interesting little puzzler. Locate all the monsters based on looking into a room full of mirrors.
Downloaded The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion Remastered. It is very pretty and visually impressive - better in the scenery (close up visuals vary) than Skyrim even with mods. I wouldn't be surprised if they're using this to showcase the visuals for an eventual ES6. It's still the same game under the hood, though they seem to have tweaked level scaling of enemies. I'm only a short way in but have already met a few bugged quests (luckily resolvable) and lacking the ability to "short fire" bows (you have to fully draw, during which time the enemy may move) is annoying. As is the lockpick system, but it's coming back to me.
