1y ago

Monthly Recommendations Thread: What are you playing?

Tell us what game you are currently, or recently played, greater than 6+ months old.

Bonus points if its on sale, with a link.

56 comments

Wreckfest and specifically the multiplayer! Class C semi-clean or even just free for all races are soooo good.
- That's a recommendation you don't see often. I'll add it to my wishlist.

Since I finished Starfield. I've had an itch for more space exploration. I decided to get back into Elite Dangerous. I haven't played it for a good couple years. I bought the latest DLC for it when it was released. I just never got around to playing it. I'm absolutely loving the space legs.
I've been going from system to system. Mapping each planet and moon. Landing on those that I can. Exploring for geological features and biology samples. All while marathoning my favourite YouTube channels.
Elite Dangerous - £4.99 ~~£19.99~~ 75% Off https://store.steampowered.com/app/359320/Elite_Dangerous/
Elite Dangerous: Odyssey - £10.49 ~~£29.99~~ 65% Off https://store.steampowered.com/app/1336350/Elite_Dangerous_Odyssey/
- Elite and Starfield are like night and day. In Starfield, you can't actually fly through space and it's more of a decoration, while in Elite you're there from the liftoff, to the travel, to the descent.
- I love Elite, but i always quit when i try to follow builds and everything requires engineering, and those are just too much of a grind for me.

Picked up Dvinity Orginal sin Enhanced Edition
On sale and native for Linux ;-)
gog
- I recently tried Original Sin 2 two weeks ago with the Baldur's Gate craze. I'm not really a RPG player but I wanted to try it to make sure I wasn't missing anything.
  Conclusion: I really don't like RPGs :p
  
  Well now you know :D
  I mean there are different kinds of RPGs. Maybe you just didn’t find your specific one It’s out there Waiting for you
- Hope you have more fun with it than I did. XD

Jedi Survivor. It ran like shit when I bought it at launch, so I waited a bit and it's been great so far.
- I was just thinking about this one. Loved the first one and have been waiting for it to be all patched up. How did you play it?

Unciv
- tell me more
  
  Opensource FOSS civ clone based on Civ 5. Works well as a mobile game which I enjoy because decent mobile games are hard to find.
  https://github.com/yairm210/Unciv
  https://flathub.org/apps/io.github.yairm210.unciv
  https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.unciv.app/
  https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/unciv

I recently finished Hyper Light Drifter. It was decent, pretty good level of challenge in boss battles or when the enemies surround you. Backtracking to find secrets was a chore though. And cloud saves didn't work which was a bummer.
Before that was another attempt to enjoy No Man's Sky. I just can't do it, too many bafflingly stupid design decisions.
Now I'm loading Red Dead Redemption 2 onto my Steam Deck. Finally time to undertake what I hope to be my favorite wild west adventure ever.
- I might start RDR2 alongside you. The controls and lack of time have kept me away from the game, but I have been itching for a game like it for such a long time.
  I'll download it on my Steam Deck tonight

I started South Park The Stick of Truth.
I never was a big fan, I only ever watched a handful of South Park episodes back then. Regardless, it's pretty good even if you haven't watched most of it.
For sure, if you absolutely hate South Park, maybe don't get this...
But if like me you just never really got that much into it or haven't really kept up with it, it's absolutely fine.
Anyhow
In it, you start playing as a mute South Park newcomer protagonist who himself joins a town-wide bunch of LARPERs in an adventure that goes off the rails.
It doesn't shy from breaking the fourth wall.
It's utterly fucking stupid at times, which is expected.
Pretty fun so far.
- Love that game. Had a joint playthrough with some of my friends back in college. Well I mostly watched and smoked weed, but I was there. I've also only seen a handful of South Park episodes but that game was a fun experience.
- It's very fun. I also really enjoyed the sequel, even if it felt like it lost some of its charme and attention to detail in exchange for scope and combat depth. Felt a little harsh to switch to the next one, but I had a lot of fun either way.

After years of Skyrim losing me to its jank, my mod list has reached a size of 450 and thus critical mass: Skyrim has finally pulled me in!
I‘m also playing Hollow Knight and a bit of Mario 3D Land on the Switch, so I‘m havin‘ a grand ol‘ time these days

Quake 4, bog standard 7th gen corridor shooter and the half way point makes the game slightly more tolerable, just enough to be considered 'good'. On the bright side the lighting is great in darker areas, something that iD Tech 4 games excel at. I don't know why most modern games dark areas look like you're walking downtown at 9pm, when it should be much darker depending on the game.

Homeworld remastered. I saw deserts of karak on sale for like $4 but then realized I own the remaster somehow and never played it. Probably humble bundle. Only a few missions in but has a surprising complexity for a 20 year old RTS
- I was pleasantly surprised by how good Deserts of Kharak is.
  Also if you're playing the remaster make sure to use the Players Patch mod as it fixes a lot of bugs and balance issues.
  
  Oh thanks for the heads up. I would not have thought to look for that!
- -90% off at GOG

My patient game would be Slay the spire, I still play it on either switch or Android several times a week.
However, this year I did something unusual for myself and not patient: I bought Zelda: tears of the kingdom (I did wait about a month after release). Ive already put probably 300 hours into it, and still have quite a bit more I can do, so the $/hour of entertainment value there I don't think ive matched.

Uncharted 2 - making my way through the original trilogy

I just finished Hexalogic and Grand Mountain Adventure: Wonderlands, and both are fantastic. The first is an interesting take on sudoku that gets pretty challenging near the end, and the second is what happens if you blow up Ski Free to a full length game.
Other than that, continuing on with Mass Effect Legendary (first ME playthrough), Skyward Sword, and Blasphemous: Wounds of Eventide. I'm almost done with Zelda, and I'll probably switch to Tokyo Xanadu Ex+ afterward. I'm near the start with the others, and I'll probably play some small games here and there.

Troy, a total war saga. This is my first total war experience and I'm having a blast. Still getting to know all the mechanics though
- If this is your first total war experience, then I can see why you like it, but Troy is by far and away NOT the best of the total war games. Honestly, the further back you go, the better they are. Shogun 2 and Medieval 2 are absolutely fantastic games, with deeper mechanics than many of the more modern ones.
  
  Shogun 2 and older games massively lose out on the UX. Especially in combat, the games have much less quality of life.
  Furthermore, the newer games simply work towards a somewhat different audience. The studio has clearly picked up on the success of Warhammer and after stumbling both through all of Three Kingdoms and the launch of Troy, they seem to have firmly settled towards the more fantasy direction which is counter to the philosophy of the earlier games.
  While I certainly support trying out the older titles too, calling Troy a simply worse game than the older titles is a bit reductionistic and definitely has a personal bias and may be somewhat misleading, even if your advice was in good faith.

When I'm not playing baldurs gate 3, I'm stopping in on baldurs gate 1 which I didn't play back in the day(I only had 2), The original kingdom hearts, a second playthrough of final fantasy remake in anticipation of rebirth, outer worlds, midnight Suns, guardians of the Galaxy, star ocean the last hope, and thr ever present vampire Survivors and Binding of Isaac. I've been hopping games frequently recently.
- I admire your ability to keep track of all that. I actively play FF14 to fill my MMO slot and then some other game that is my mainstay at the time. If I dare even touch another serious title, it tends to completely push out the prior one, so I have been really trying hard not to start another bigger game while I'm not done with the last one.
  It's how I've been playing Yakuza 0 for the last entire year, coming back every half eternity. I really need to just sit down and play a title or take forever.
  
  Ff14 is the reason my Backlog got as bad as it did. My plan was to quit after end walker but instead I never even finished the story and I hate myself for it cause I played since 1.0, but every time I go back I just keep thinking of every other game I could be playing instead and don't wind up playing more than an hour.

Xonotic. It’s an open source fps supposedly similar to Quake. It’s free, so no harm in checking it out!

Dark Souls II I am really enjoying it. I think this is my new 2nd favorite souls game after DS1.
- Agreed I don't know why it gets so much hate. I mean the poison spitting statue in the dark level is pretty frustrating and the graphics are what you expect from an old game but I had a heap of fun with it.
  
  Same, but it was my first FROMSOFT launch game with absolute bustling multiplayer activity so I know I‘m biased lol, it‘s even my fav. Had an absolutely based 2H faith build.

Halfway through playing Batman Arkham Knight on Xbox.

Stray. I have been wanting to play it for a while and it's currently on sale.
The environment is pure eye candy to me.
- I started playing Stray on my Steam Deck a while back. It runs pretty much perfectly but I've got some problems with my left hand (I suffered a stroke last year) so I had to give up after a while. I too really loved the environment. The game is beautiful. I can't wait for my hand to get better, so I can finish it.

Space Engineers
after many years of Moore's law the game hasn't gotten any less laggy

I started playing Monster Hunter Rise! I’ve played Monster Hunter: World before for a bit, so I understand something of how it works.
That didn’t stop me from trying to skip ahead in quests and getting pummeled a bunch of times though. Whoops!
I’m also finally trying to get a little further in American Truck Simulator. I’ve had it for a few years and have struggled to play consistently.

I just finished the Psychoscape DLC for Borderlands 3. :)

Pokemon Infinite Fusion. It's honestly the best pokemon game I've ever played, fan-made or otherwise.

Recently completed Dark Souls for the first time. I'm not sure if I enjoyed it, but it was a unique experience.
Started Monster Hunter Rise on PC. Some things feel a bit "off" but it's enjoyable (I actually tried playing on Switch when the game released, but it was miserable)

Remnant: From the Ashes

Just got my steam deck and I'm playing divinity original sin 2 and Zelda Wind Waker (call me a patient gamer! Ahah)

Outer Worlds. All the backlash from Starfield reminded me that obsidian did fallout in space years ago in the older style.

Other than Metroid Dread, I also enjoyed Hardspace: Shipbreaker recently. There's certainly joy to be had in doing a (sometimes) simple job well, and it keeps you on your toes just enough. Major bonus points for a story and characters that struck a lot of the same dystopian chords that Papers, Please did. Just, ya know, in space. I will absolutely play another game in this universe if one comes out.

Phantom Liberty, Forbidden West, Midnight Suns, Fallout 76

I'll throw down the factorio card for this week. Trying it out on the steam deck. Plays pretty good so far. Bit clunky in the controls, but I'll keep messing around with them. Plus it's great for the pick up and play, although I'll prob need to leave notes or something when things get more complex so I don't lose the thread

I've been playing a lot of BattleBit recently.
I play a match or two at nigth with a friend and it's always a lot of fun. Everything from the people to the mechanics are enjoyable. At the beginning it was a bit confusing but I've gotten used to it.

I picked up horizon zero dawn again after a year since i dropped it. I really liked it more than a year ago. This was a really big deal for me since I felt like I lost enjoyment in gaming since 3 months ago. Playing HZD, really helped me find my groove back in gaming.

I'm not trying to gatekeep patience, but 6 months?

56 comments