What VIDEO GAME(s) have you been playing?

Found Freelancer on an abandonware site. It shows its age, but its 2003 "immersive galaxy" might serve as a 2022 turn-your-brain-off space shooter. I played the heck out of it way back when.

Vampire Survivors dropped on GamePass so I played through it and basically finished it. Was a solid 30 hour game.

I've got 47 hours in it and I really enjoy getting the new unlocks and seeing the new stuff every two weeks or so.

Ms Flight Simulator got the long delayed Top Gun Maverick content. I'm actually not sure if fighter jets were already in this as I see several in the storefront (including, sadly, a main gunless A-10). Regardless it's fun to fly the F-18. Looks like the ground packs got substantial better, Disneyland and Disney world at least. They really need a air balloon or something in this game.

Picked up Generation Zero weekend before last. Essentially, in 1989 Sweden does a Skynet. And man, it's right up my alley. The era it's set in, the open world, the running madly through the forest to avoid being shot by rejects from Boston Dynamics. ALSO MULLETS!

To make matters worse the Soviets! also invade with their own mechs and goes just as well for them.

One of my favorite experience happened the other night. Sometimes, you come across the Soviets! vs. FNIX mech fights. Most times, I just sit there, with popcorn, watching the fight. This time, I was trying to be low profile since the surrounding area had Tanks all over the place. Well, It was a FNIX Tank & Harvester v. Soviet Wolf & Lynx. I was prone on the ground, watching the fight via binoculars with the IR setting on.

Suddenly, I hear the aggro noise of a Runner. I think, "Oh shit, maybe laying down in the middle of tilled field watching a mech slapfight wasn't a good idea."

I turn to my left and try to see where the Runner is. Over a ridge, I see not one, but FOUR Runners gallop past me not twenty meters away. I did a full body shudder as I hoped to God they would not vape me. Fortunately, they were more insistent on assisting their brethren in the fight with the Wolf.

When they got down to the fight area, I decided that the odds were not fair. So, I pulled out my AT weapon loaded up an HEDP round and started shelling the every loving shit out the mechs. Needless to say, the Runners did not last the shelling. The battle was eventually won (by me), since the mechs mostly ignored me due to the presence of non-human opponents. There was much LOOT to be had. I walked away happy.

The end.

I played several hours of Generation Zero a while back. I never got the chance to play in co-op which would have been great. I liked it but fell off as it got samey.

The best part was going into an underground bunker, they were always so creepy.

hotseatgames wrote: I played several hours of Generation Zero a while back. I never got the chance to play in co-op which would have been great. I liked it but fell off as it got samey.

The best part was going into an underground bunker, they were always so creepy.

And the goddamn chittering of the Ticks. Made me always have my SMG fully loaded (I find the shotguns to be insufficient) before I go into an area where they're suspected to be. Little leaping bastards.

Re: samey. Yes, once you see a few of the houses, they tend to ALL have the same layout. Same with the bunkers. However, the SIZE of the island was awesome and I enjoyed exploring more than shooting mechs. The environment is so damn pretty.

I feel that some of the weapons are woefully underpowered (.50 cal for instance), but I can see why for game balance. It's just annoying that a weapon in your hands does jack shit to the mechs, while in their hands it's a frickin' Death Star.

I have not purchased a game since upgrading to Ultimate Game Pass - I find myself trying a lot more indy stuff when the price tag is free -

Kingdom Two Crowns has me strangely hooked - It's simple and it;s dumb and I lose an hour to it every now and then.

Stardew Valley - At the behest of my kids - It's a near miss for me - I prefer :

Forager : Which is a super simple jump in and go resource tree builder - Beat it. Started over.


Citizen Sleeper : it's a nice little board gamey action economy skill tree far future cyber punky thing.

I bought Hardspace: Shipbreaker. It's a PC game where you are given decommissioned but not safely decommissioned space ships (e.g. they still have fuel on, some systems remain powered, etc) and asked to deconstruct them to pay off your debt to the company. The satire is heavy handed but mostly works---particularly their emphasis on how modern work often tries to gamify work to get you to work harder and their motivational and inspirational bullshit.

The game itself I'm teetering a bit on. It starts way, way too slow and your tools suck way too bad. In a boring, tedious way. But now that I'm getting some more of the tools I'm really enjoying it a lot more. The thing it gets right is getting you into the groove of a work mindset---the actual good part of skilled work where you are executing using your skills in a shrewd and thoughtful way---and the way it's lightly pushing you to work faster, go just beyond what's safe, make cuts that will speed up the job but may blow yourself up in the process.

So jury still a little bit out. Very creative game.

Playing through Half Life 2 which I've never actually played before (beyond about five minutes). It's fun, and more importantly, my aging desktop can still handle it. The kid is watching and cheering me on, so that's fun.

My son played through all of the free trial content for Final Fantasy XIV and has encouraged me to join up. Listening to him describe all of it during our walks reminded me of similar experiences back when I played FFXI, and I could tell that it was something he wanted to share with me on an ongoing basis. So we're both on the same server now, though I'm guessing he'll probably want to migrate to a JP server when he moves to Tokyo (and I'll follow suit and just deal with the latency).

The user interface is a hot mess, but I expected some obtuse design based on my previous FFXI experience & I'll probably acclimate in a couple of weeks (and adjust some settings). I'm still deciding between sticking with my PS4 controller and a keyboard or going full keyboard & mouse.

This game seems much more generous than its ancestor: more stories, better traversal, more job flexibility, more options for side-activities, events etc. It feels like FFXI with lessons learned from those who came after (I see some strains of Guild Wars 2).

I made a character who looks nearly identical to my FFXI Elvaan Warrior, but added some grey streaks to his top knot and a scar to reflect the passage of time

Finished up the main storyline of Generation Zero yesterday. It was...underwhelming. Through the main quests you find out why things turned out the way they did and the Soviets! were there for a different reason. It was like the end of Fallout, but there was no choice to fight or talk. Just do the the thing and get out. Like I said, underwhelming. I played for a bit afterwards, but after being let down, I'll doubt I play this again any time soon.

The reason is more than that. The game needs a significant update to be real fun. Some of the "quests" you get are downright a chore. Destroy 10 harvesters, even in multiplayer, takes time and then you run the SIGNIFICANT risk that when you actually destroy one that it WILL NOT count. I believe that's when I decided this game is not as nearly as fun as I thought and stopped playing.

Destroying FNIX bases fall into the same problem as well. Unless you have a LOT of AT rounds or a LOT of AR ammo, it will take forever to do. To add insult to injury to this, I found out yesterday that you CAN'T make HEDP rounds by yourself. Why? Because the developers put the damn paperwork in a room THAT YOU CANNOT GET INTO. Even still, the rocket launcher is woefully under-powered. It's good for taking out clusters of lower enemies, but against Tanks, Wolves, and Harvester it's like throwing rocks against them. Even with the blast damage maxed out on the Engineer tree, it takes and ungodly amount of AT rocket hits to seriously damage them. You'll then spend the next 5-10 minutes emptying magazine after magazine at various, small weak spots while dodging their return fire at regular intervals.

The devs need to fix these problems, along with some other gameplay issues-like being stuck in a location because the environment pins you there.

Heat index has been dangerously high these past few days, so the boys and I hunkered down in the basement and played Mario Kart Wii. Turning the controller is jank, but the game is such fun. The boys take turns on time trials because I don’t want to deal with the hurt feelings of competitive races or prize box variance, but that takes nothing away from the fun of just barely staying the edge of mine cart tracks or blasting down a ski hill.

My favorite course is probably the mall. It’s stuffed with secrets and alternate routes, and those cars in the parking lot are definitely deliberately getting in my way.

I just need to sneak in some grand prixs on my own to unlock more courses and see what they’ve done to Rainbow Road in the decades since I played the original.

I bought Neon White on Steam, which is a single player speed running FPS. Levels are short, usually beatable in sub-20 seconds. There are 125 levels though, and you will have to try multiple times to get the lowest times.

My friend and I both got it so that we could compete on the leaderboards. Unfortunately, I quickly discovered that he is terrible, so now I need someone here to get it so that I have more motivation.

In other news, my own game, Dungeon Fall, is 25% off on Steam, so forget what I said about Neon White. Buy Dungeon Fall instead.

Played Generation Zero this weekend. This was after a huge gig patch to the game, where they redesigned and spruced up certain areas. And I have to say, they did a good job. Bugs are still there, but they finally fixed the HEDP BUG! I can now make AT rounds. It also seemed like they re-balanced fighting the Tanks and Harvesters. Tanks now charge and move a lot more than they did. However, taking the bigger mechs down is A LOT easier. Fights take less time and AT rounds are a little bit more effective. I've actually gotten into control point base building and now have a way to get rid of the resources I obsessively collect. Attacking FNIX control points is now easier for me, as I now know what to disable/destroy before actually going in.

Also played some Payday 2, but only for the Safe House attack. I let some noobs and and we had a good time, but I was so conditioned I had to fight the urge to go over to the dead bodies and try to loot them like in Generation.