Discussion questions:
What video games have you played recently?
What are your favorite video game genres?
Question of the week:
What games coming out in 2024 are you most anticipating? Or games that are coming out sometime in the future?
A couple of recent games I really enjoyed are Spiritfall and Viewfinder. Spiritfall is like dead cells meets super smash bros, and Viewfinder is similar to Portal in feel. Haven’t really been keeping up with new games coming out, mostly focusing on my backlog. :)
Same.
Just looked up Spiritfall and it looks like a blast
Hands down one of the best games I’ve played this year.
Pro soccer online
wat dat
A minimal online multiplayer soccer/football game.
Playing GTA IV as my main title at the moment. Really appreciate how down to earth it is in comparison to the next game.
Other than that I’m also playing Orna on my phone when I’m out for a walk. GPS game based on classic RPG mechanics of grinding out monsters n’ shit. Petty good time.
I’m definitely still playing Dyson Sphere Program. I’m building my first space ball around an O-type and if my calculations are correct, it’s gonna be pushing 861 GW with just the one shell. I’m considering adding as many as the game allows to see what I end with. My initial goal was to get on the leaderboard for this seed, I’m there. Now my goal is to get the 1 TW achievement. After that I’m considering going for 1st place on the leader board.
I’m still bottlenecking on science too. My theoretical max is 2500/min but I’m only getting around 1800 under best conditions. But I’m actually focusing on a new rocket factory I put in my new sphere system anyway. Research can just trickle in for now.
I’m gon a plop down more mining in my sphere system and hope I can keep my silicone and titanium topped off since that is where it’s chugging right now.
Other than that, I finished Prodeus and am working to collect all the collectible things for new guns. It’s a lot of fun if you like restro shooters. It doesn’t overstay it’s welcome too much.
I’m working on getting into Ultra Overkill currently too. I’m not sure move tech really works with boomer shooters but it’s still mindless fun. Also chainsaw legs.
DSP is my favourite factory game by far, great to see someone else playing that one. I just polished off my first Dark Fog game, so was poking around at some other up and coming factory games before I started another run.
I just finished the frame on my initial sphere shell out of a planned 10. I still need 12 million sails shipped to it and ramped my sail production up to around 10k/min. I’ve been working on just this shell for a week along with trying to fix my white science bottleneck because I really want to ramp up to 5k science/min. I actually chose to do a non-df run this time even though I was waiting for the new update before I started playing again lol.
Also I think my estimated 861 GW is gonna be closer to 873 but we shall see.
If you like factory games and haven’t given it a shot, check out shapez. It’s surprisingly fun and deep for just cutting shapes up and such.
I am afraid to ask since I am trying not to buy any new games but do you have any new ones that you’d recommend?
I can totally understand doing a non-DF run, they are a cool challenge in the early game and their special buildings can really help with ramping up late game but they can be a bit annoying to deal with. The DF Lab in particular is a huge help if you are going for one of the big science achievements, because I think it is 2x as fast as a base lab. I wouldn’t play with DF again myself until they flesh out the space combat more, dealing with the space hive right now is kind of cumbersome because it hasn’t really been fully implemented yet.
I may have honestly played every factory game on steam at this point. Shapez was great, I am looking forward to shapez 2. DSP / Factorio / Satisfactory is the holy trinity of factory games to me at this point, but I think everyone knows those.
Captain of Industry is a great one with more real-world production chains and some light colony-management as well. It’s pretty challenging and you can get locked into a death spiral pretty easily. There are difficulty settings that can be adjusted on the fly that help with that though. I like more of a sci-fi setting usually, but this is a pretty cool adaptation of real industry.
Desynced is a lesser known SF factory builder that adds some programming elements. Basically everything are logistic bots rather than belts, but all the bots can be programmed with a decently robust visual programming language. All the buildings/bots you build are modular too, with components that you slot in. I like shoving some solar panels on all my carrier bots so that they contribute to my power grid while transporting cargo.
Of the trinity, Satisfactory is the latest in my collection and it just did not click with me. I got coal up and running and then just dropped it. I think it’s the fps perspective that I wasn’t jiving with.
Captain of Industry is def on my radar. I’m not so sure about it but might grab it done day.
This is the second time in a week that I’ve seen Desynced mentioned so I’m gonna add it to my wishlist now.
Ultra Overkill is a good one.
I played a bit more and it’s really a lot of fun. The move tech can get a little chaotic though.
Funny thing, actually! So a buddy showed me this website that allows one to buy games on steam despite the sanctions (steam currently prohibits purchases from Russia, for the record). If anyone is wondering “why not just pirate” - I wanted some specific games and their pirated versions had compatibility issues.
Anyway, bought myself Sleeping Dogs. Apparently (I didn’t know it originally) it’s part of the True Crime series, which features undercover cops infiltrating gangs and such. I suppose this premise alone might turn many comrades off.
This specific title is set in Hong Kong. There’s some western chauvinism sprinkled here and there (for example, in the club location there’s an ad for “Gulag vodka”). A good amount of characters are westernised, having western names (Jackie Ma, Winston Chu, etc). Protagonist’s boss is white even. That said I feel it’s doing a decent-ish job of not whitewashing either the gangs or police. Aforementioned boss for example is shown faking evidence at least once so far in my progression and is generally a cold git. Gangs talk a lot about loyalty and family, but also murder and steal with no regards to anyone but themselves.
Anyway, regardless of the plot, gameplay is quite pleasant. It’s an open world TPS, similar to GTA and Mafia series, but with less emphasis on shooting (“guns are rare in Hong Kong”, as one character says) and more emphasis on hand to hand fighting. There’s mechanics for grappling, throwing, blocks, kicks and punches. Fun stuff, if you’re into this kind of games.
Overall, it’s obviously striving to envoke action movie feel. Something from John Woo, or perhaps those Van Damme flicks. Not bad to unwind after work.
Question of the week
Admittedly I don’t even know what is coming out this year, and most of it would likely melt my wee potato laptop anyway. I was kinda looking forward to Smuta, which is a Russian game, set in 1600’s. It had a prominent (online) and openly Marxist historian as a consultant. Unfortunately, the game is apparently shit. Mechanically, plot-wise, just in general. Folks are now mocking said historian in comments to his videos.
Smuta, eh? Might check it out regardless…
Not entirely sure how to translate the term. Google suggests “troubles”, but it’s missing the notion of unclarity of the original. The historical period is quite interesting, so it’s a real shame the game got panned. We’re talking time between Ivan IV dying and Mikhail Romanov getting crowned (thus starting the now notorious Romanov dynasty). Strange times. Polish invaders, false kings, boyars scheming. And technologically too, it’s early XVII century - gunpowder ahoy, but still plenty of cold weapons, bows and whatnot
It’s a really interesting time period, and it’s such a shame that the game turned out to be an utter garbage.
I just started Horizon Forbidden West. I actually loved the first game, but trouble is I finished it about 6 years ago. So I’m struggling to remember the characters and game echanics.
I liked Forbidden West way more than I expected to.
I loved Zero Dawn, but a lot of what I loved about that game was the discovery of finding out what happened in the events that led up to the game. The sequel obviously didn’t have that, so I was very skeptical about it. I was thankfully quite wrong.
Yeah I think that’s a big part of it. My desire to learn what happened was so overpowering it’s all I could think about.
Yeah, the second game tries to get you up to speed, but doesn’t succeed very well, I would argue.
Terrible lol. Well hopefully the new story is good enough to suck in me fast
Actually have some time this weekend to play games and I decided to go back to Guild Wars 2 for a bit. Trying out Condition berserker (more like gearing it up lol).
I just realized that I have month to finish getting the good stuff out of the wizard’s vault, and I feel like this time there’s a lot more stuff than the last few resets.
They say that there’s going to be a Guild Wars 3 soon enough.
Well it’s no secret Arenanet has wasted a lot of development effort on other games that haven’t seen the light of day for at least 5 years (maybe more). With their track record, I’m not expecting to see it, it’s just useful to know the real reason as to why the last ecpansion and subsequent updates have been lackluster.
Big oof.
Played Millenia & Tropico 6, (waiting for next update to drop in helldivers 2)
Grand Strategy is by far my favourite genre, followed closely by 4X, and then shooters
I am excited for Manor Lords next week, but after Millenia I am trying to temper my expectations
What did you think of Millenia? Honestly I like it more than most, there are a lot of basic design choices that I think are cool, but it definitely needs more time in balancing. It feels more like an EA game than a 1.0 release honestly. I did a couple playthroughs and will probably come back to it again after it [hopefully] gets some updates.
I like it a lot, but they need a lot more “offramp” victory ages, also a way to destroy cities (aside from archangels).
They also need an actual multiplayer, I would buy another 5 copies for my friends if they get it working
Tropico 6! Heard good things about that game.
I like it, but the changes they made to the office building makes modern era too easy
I’m playing a lot of Stardew Valley right now. It’s been a rough year, and the new patch is exactly the kind of thing I want in my life right now.
For the upcoming year, I’m very much looking forward to Frostpunk 2 (I played the beta last week, and it was great), and the upcoming Victoria 3 DLCs/patches.
The patch is that good?
Yeah. It’s basically free DLC. It adds a lot of new mechanics and items, and some new in-game events. It’s changed the game quite a bit.
I wonder what would Karl do
Probably start writing something about how the game romanticises capitalism, then pop off to the pub or play another day and never finish writing it.
Im playing the CK3 mod, After The End right now alongside keeping up with Guilty Gear Strive.
Which CK3 mod?
The name of the mod is After The End
Aha
Learning to drift in Mario Kart 8 200cc. I like platformers, so been switching to Mario World 2 when too many 12th places finishes in MK gets me down.
Still waiting for Odyssey 2. Yea nintendo is evil but even the bad marios are better than most of the best AAA
And the good Zeldas, tbh.
I have been playing the Anomaly DLC of Rimworld (which remains my favourite game of all time).
It’s pretty good, it captures the “Cabin in the Woods” / SPC vibe very well. However, I think Rimworld DLCs are the best when they provide frameworks that let modders go crazy. Anomaly seems more like a content dlc that I will sometimes use and sometimes disable. I could definitely see myself disabling Anomaly after I do a couple games with it turned on.
Favourite Genres: JRPGs, Factory/Automation Games, Colony Builders.
I am pretty excited on the factory game front for this year. We have the expansion for Factorio, v 1.0 release of Satisfactory, and there are pretty good odds we get another big Dyson Sphere Program update this year. Of those, Dyson Sphere Program remains my favourite by far.
Finished FF7 a while ago and another called Cathedral. Started Blasphemous (españita mentioned), good little game
My favorite has changed over the years. When I was younger I used to like FPS but for the last 2-3 years I’ve been playing JRPGs almost exclusively. I really like Stalker, I should play Clear Sky again and choose the side of the bandits
There’s a Blasphemous 2 now, in case you didn’t know.
Yeah, I saw. I have a huge backlog so I’m not buying games for a good while
Fair.
Anyway I finished blasphemous, it was pretty good. Mucho texto though
I’ve been playing Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey and Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer lately. I’ve got a long commute to work, so the DS has become my best friend when I don’t feel like reading. I also started another playthrough of Diddy Kong Racing, initially just to test homebrew N64 emulation on my Switch. It actually runs well! It also plays mostly nicely with widescreen hacks, only downside is I have to run the game at base N64 resolution to avoid slowdown.
My favorite genre is probably RPGs? But I tend to get really into one or two genres at a time and then switch to something else after a bit. Recently it’s been roguelikes and, briefly, pinball. Before that I was playing a lot of bullet hell games. I think more and more I’m just interested in games that I don’t have to commit to for more than one play session.
What games coming out in 2024 are you most anticipating? Or games that are coming out sometime in the future?
I don’t know if this counts but I’m very excited for the Majora’s Mask PC port to release! I’ve been checking their Discord server every day hoping to see news. Otherwise, Demonschool seems pretty interesting, and Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance I suppose? I thought the original release of that was only alright, but hopefully the new route will be something I’m into.
Sorry if this is against the rules, but I figured this was an appropriate comment to plug !roguelikes@lemmygrad.ml. I opened it last night, but I don’t actually know what to post there lol. I made it with traditional roguelikes in mind, but there’s not any strict rules yet, so if you’ve got opinions on what should be allowed or whatever feel free to chime in.
Shin Megami Tensei V is supposed to be insanely good, from what I heard, so definitely get to the DLC.
SMT V was pretty good, yeah. I thought it was kind of weak compared to Nocturne and IV, but the game was still a lot of fun, so I’m sure the DLC will be a fun way to revisit it
What video games have you played recently?
Almost done with Hotel Dusk: Room 215. It’s a pretty solid crime thriller, and does a bunch of weird shit with the DS’s features that I appreciate. Hoping to work my way through more of that developer’s games at some point.
Hotel Dusk: Room 215? Never heard of it, alright. Weird shit indeed!
Ghost Trick is the obvious similar sorta game on the same system. I certainly preferred Ghost Trick to Hotel Dusk, but Hotel Dusk is still quite good.
