PC Gaming

I'm trying to 100% tropico 6 before the new one comes out.

Also been playing various games in luanti, minecloneia specifically

I've been on a Lethal Company kick for a few months. I've been getting super involved in the "high quota" scene, where people try to get the highest quota possible. It involves a lot of crazy tech and good team work, and I'm really enjoying it.

Currently, Hollow Knight, since Silksong finally comes out next week. Before that, a split between Kerbal Space Program and Nine Sols.

Recently picked up Enshrouded and giving that a go. Thinking of checking out the new update to No Man's Sky but haven't redownloaded it yet.

I was worried the first hour or two of Enshrouded I wouldn't like it, felt very similar to Ark and Grounded, which I wasn't much of a fan of due to the progression of those games moving at a snails pace and being brutalized by most enemies early on. But I'm happy to say I haven't felt the same disappointment from Enshrouded, sitting around 10-ish hours in. My character looks like a hobo dressed in whatever trash they could find hitting enemies with a crooked stick, but the combat feels pretty fun (instead of brutal) and there's interesting loot all over to keep the carrot and stick centers of my brain engaged. "Oh look, a slightly more interesting crooked stick!"

I like it so far.

The Finals - always

Slay the Spire

Coral Island

Very different vibes, all bangers

Gone back to working on Monster Hunter Rise with my son.

Railroader. Lots of heavily-modded Railroader.

Previously was playing through all of Mech Warrior 5 Mercs. Lately though its been many hours on Mudrunners with the mods and DLC. Its a real challenge in some areas. Had to use the boom grappler extended to one side to stop truck tipping over around the side of the canted narrow mountain roads.

I like to mix things up, so I'm replaying Wolfenstein New Colossus on death incarnate difficulty, and sprinkling in Steve's Warehouse, Balatro and Hades for shorter sessions.

I'm waiting for a good sale to pick up Indiana Jones and will probably get Borderlands 4 sometime soon so hubs and I can play it together. I'm also considering a new playthrough of Cult of the Lamb now that the expansion has been announced.

Last Epoch, an indie ARPG similar to Diablo or Path of Exile. I have about 450 hours in it (since the early access phase) but hadn't played it for over a year. Now that I'm boycotting Microsoft/Xbox I recently jumped back in and have been enjoying the impressive amount of stuff that's been added post-launch.

I play this kind of game "casually", by which I mean I don't look up build guides. To me the most fun part of the game is developing a good enough understanding of the mechanics to be able to find success building whatever type of character it is that I want to play. For someone with this type of approach I think LE is great and very flexible! It's the only game I've reviewed on Steam and years later I still recommend it!

Valheim, I've been playing solo most of the time, recently joined a new server.

Insurgency: Sandstorm, for a quick shooter fix. The player base is getting smaller these days. It's getting hard to get into a domination game.

I'm working on getting all the ending dialogues for Metal Slug Tactics right now. It's a fun turn-based tactics take on the Metal Slug franchise with a dash of roguelike. The graphics maintain the series' hand-animated aesthetic and the sprites are super-cute, but the most rewarding part is unlocking skills and weapons for each character to allow bigger and more ridiculous combo moves. Other than that, Stormworks, my "second job".

This community is kind of in the shadow of all the other gaming communities, it doesn't feel like it has a strong identity to separate it. There's already plenty of weekly threads elsewhere to discuss what we're playing and I already feel like I repeat myself between !gaming@beehaw.org and !patientgamers@sh.itjust.works. Do we need another one here? But sure.

I've been playing through the Ninja Gaiden series lately. Finished Ninja Gaiden Black and Ninja Gaiden 2 on normal, playing on Xemu and Xenia Canary emulators respectively. Currently playing through Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge from the master collection, though I'm not sure I will finish it.

NG3RE should have the best combat in the series. The fundamentals are better than ever, Ryu is more fluid in his movements than ever and the combo strings are more flexible than ever. It just... I dunno. It doesn't feel as good, satisfying or just fun. NGB had extremely precise, measured and deliberate combat, albeit slower than the later games. NG2 was an unbalanced mess, but it had a visceral pleasure when it clicked that is simply unparalleled. NG3RE changes the formula a lot, and not always for the better. Trying to play for Steel On Bone counters is what the game wants you to do, but it's more reactive and less fun than previous games. And the animations aren't as satisfying as the executions in NG2. NG3RE also has even worse bosses, which is a damn feat considering the series has some real stinkers.

And let's not even get into the atrocious story, which manages to be maximally bad and lame but without ever crossing over into "so bad it's good" territory. The Call of Duty or Ghost Recon-esque military special agent framing also ruins the vibe, and the boring and terrible level design makes me miss the wildly varied and interesting locations of NG2.

I really don't know if I'll finish it, all I want to do really is go back and play NGB and NG2 again. At least I found FiendBusa's "Black" mod for it, that makes it a bit better.