GTA IV and NFS Unbound on Rog Ally.

I’ll be honest, I was too young to understand GTA IV’s lore back then, and I was mainly playing it for barely getting 20 FPS on my PC and the physics system of the game. But now when I actually listen to the dialogues and radio station, man it sounds like they saw what America would be like in 2020s a decade early. “We should reduce minimum wage and remove rights of citizens to fight against the illegal immigration crisis”. Damn.

I picked up Tunic after wanting it for quite some time. I’m enjoying it a great deal. I was sure that it couldn’t possibly be that much like Dark Souls when it has that art style but, uhh, no, turns out it’s the opening is basically exactly Dark Souls right down to being told to go ring two mysterious magic bells in opposite directions from where you currently are

I got predictably burned out on RDR2 after trying to complete a bunch of challenges before proceeding (I wanted to look cool in all the cutscenes!), so that is on the back burner for now. I also had some personal events that made me less able to focus on story games. Or maybe less in the mood. Take your pick.

Found a good deal on F1 Manager 2023 instead, and that has been a perfect distraction. Not least since I’m not really getting my F1 fix from watching the races so far, this year.

I didn’t play the predecessor so I don’t know how much it improves year-on-year, but I’d say it’s solid if you are an F1 fan. The presentation is awesome, especially thanks to the official licensing, with stuff like radio clips of the actual drivers and engineers adding a lot of immersion during races.

As a management game it seems fine. As someone who’s put a lot of hours into Football Manager, this isn’t on that level in terms of depth. But it seems perfectly adequate. I’m having fun juggling the budget and striking a balance between long term investments and short term development. There are a lot of little considerations to fiddle with. The setup-sliders minigame is fun.

I’m playing as Aston Martin on Hard Race AI/Hard Development AI and it hasn’t felt too easy (yet). Red Bull is leading and I’m not catching them, Ferrari is thereabouts and I’m just behind, with Alonso usually beating Ferrari (but not always), and I even managed to sneak a win when Verstappen crashed out in Baku.

If you’re an F1 fan and can find it on sale I think you’ll enjoy it.

Metroid Dread, Stardew Valley, and Baldur’s Gate 3.

The former on Yuzu’s last build on a nice 32 inch monitor with a big controller that doesn’t cramp up my hands. It’s pretty hard, but I did just get past a part I hear a lot of people quit on, so there’s that. I can’t imagine trying to play it with Joycons. I’d probably snap them in half.

Just finished Deus Ex: Human Revolution for the umpteenth time, and managed to bag the achievement for not triggering any alarms (commonly regarded as one of the most difficult achievements in the game, alongside Pacifist)

Yes, a moderate degree of savescumming was used. I’m not sorry!

Final Fantasy XV (Windows edition): What a strange experience so far. I don’t see myself as a fan of the franchise, but I’ve played many of its titles over the years, starting with the first one as a child.

The opening title mentions the game has been made for “fans and first timers”, so I expected some degree of nostalgia, despite it looking so different from its predecessors. I was served some… but in such weird ways. Let’s start with the composition of the Four Warriors of Light:

• The brat: Noctis, emo prince of teen attitude, as well as protagonist.
• The urban dad: Ignis, cooks elaborate meals and drives (always responsibly) the brat around.
• The country dad: Gladio, went to the school of life, must protecc the brat.
• The brat’s best friend that eats and sleeps at home so often he kind of becomes family: Prompto.

As Ignis was driving the warriors around in a fantasy rural North America, a desolate car centric landscape in which each road’s main destination is the next gas station, Prompto was making comments about playing video games. The car’s radio was playing FFIV’s Main Theme over and over again. Then it hit me: the nostalgia trip was not limiting itself to referencing lore from previous games, it was aiming to remind older gamers of how it was being a kid infatuated with classic RPGs. (A side note on the embarrassing haircuts the warriors are rockin’: back in the 90’s there were posters of these all over hair salons despite nobody ever getting one, but I guess this is really about modern jpop/kpop boy bands or something.)

It’s like FFXV is aiming for the worst possible kind of nostalgia: the kind that makes you glorify past experiences out of regret for the time when you were a pampered selfish kid.

Anyways I’m probably way off, but that’s my thoughts on FFXV. Oh also there’s chocobos so it’s not all bad. Thanks for reading.

I have picked up Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley. It plays janky on the keyboard. I will try to play it on the controller.

The nostalgia hits me in the heart.

Together with two friends I play Nightingale. It’s buggy but beautiful.

And when I don’t want to multiplay, I play the old Command and Conquer Titles EA was so generously providing on Steam for super cheap.

Balatro, Nier: Automata, and Automation: Car Tycoon Game.

Just finished Bomb Rush Cyberfunk and need to get back into Baldur’s Gate 3 to finish the last act.

just beat a difficult game about climbing and i loved it! it’s the only other game in the genre that has risen to the heights of getting over it in terms of gameplay mechanics and level design.

if anyone reading this knows about a community for these types of games (foddian? getting over it-likes?), please send it my way. i love these games to bits and have so much to say about them but to my knowledge basically no one cares about these games outside of watching people on twitch get angry at them.

looking forward to playing return of the obra dinn, then i’ll probably start speedrunning the climbing game until baby steps releases lol

Playing Subnautica this week. Having the slight problem that I find all the small fish so adorable that I feel bad about cooking and eating them. It’s also worth noting that I have thalassophobia, which is impeding progress a little because underwater caves are scary, deep water is scary, not being able to see the bottom is scary, and not being able to see the surface is scary.

Unicorn Overlord. It’s Ogre Battle all over again and I love it.

Doing my part in Helldivers at the moment.

That game gets my brain firing on all cylinders and although it has It’s frustrating moments, I’d say that overall I think it’s great. It’s one of the few 'Live-Service" games I actually enjoy.

Trying out Ironsworn, my first tabletop rpg. After watching emacsconf talk on it ;D

I’m kind of in a gaming slump right now and nothing has really grabbed me for a couple of weeks.

I’m still doing runs in Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor, which is fun for the most part.

Then I think I finished the campaign in Kingdom Rush, a Tower-Defense game, which unlocked a bunch of super hard bonus levels, but I guess you’re supposed to clear all the challenge modes for the regular levels before that, for upgrades, but I’m not really interested in that at all.

I also tried getting back into Dyson Sphere Program, Last Epoch, and Satisfactory, but nothing really stuck.

A few days ago I started Solasta: Crown of the Magister, and played through the tutorial, but still need to start it properly, but who knows if I’ll do it.