Currently playing...

[venusian]

Vampire Survivors here too. It's on XBox Gamepass for PC.

Just opened the coffins in the wood and in the in library but the princess... er, vampire is in another coffin. Garlic in definitely the key.

[Rhythm]

God of War (2018) is one of the offer games this month on Plus. I've heard people banging on about it for a while so I thought I'd try it.

Oh my god it's dogshit. Or at least the opening chapter is. From the shitty gruff dialogue to the terrible fight controls through the main character that feels like he's sliding on an ice sheet... it's just fucking dreadful.

So I looked up ratings to see if there was something obvious I'm missing. Apparently I'm not, this is just "the game". But then looking at the top ten on Metacritic for PS4 I realised just how out of whack I am with reviewers.

- Half the top ten games for PS4 are newer versions of PS3 games
- 2 of the games are Rockstar slogfests
- all of the games bar one are narrative-heavy action titles (a serious fucking oxymoron)

And I guess this is my "fuck, I'm getting old" moment. It's like the time you realise people your age watch sport, wrestling or anime without a hint of irony. Finding out you have mates who think Dubai sounds like a fun place to go on holiday or that personalised numberplates aren't just massive WANKER badges.

I want to know where the push turned to promoting massive "story-based" AAA 3rd party action games instead of games that are, y'know... fun. There's totally a place for games like that - different strokes etc - but for every single one of the games in the top ten to be basically built off the same template.... surely that points to issues with the way games are scored?

[Rhythm]

In contrast to GoW, I tried Hardspace Shipbreaker. It's amazing. A true chillout game, you're employed by a corporation who breaks apart spaceships for scrap. Full "Descent" controls, you have a few tools at your disposal and you're left to your own devices to try and pull apart a ship in the best manner possible.

Lots of issues to deal with like being aware of pressurisation or fuel tanks. You're cutting pieces down to size so you can move them easily, pulling all the components out from the cabins...

It's got a cool little anti-corp story happening in the background but otherwise it's a case of take your time, figure out the best way to approach things yourself. A great audiobook/podcast title.

[Misfit]

In contrast to GoW, I tried Hardspace Shipbreaker. It's amazing.

It's on Game Pass too, but only for the PC, no console or streaming version yet.

[mb3018]

Post Void, pretty fun game. If you ever got lost/stuck in Doom or Wolfenstein, this game is for you. All you do is go forward.

[mb3018]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1285670/Post_Void/

[Rhythm]

Tried Flight Sim when it first came out, found it a buggy mess that wouldn't play nicely with my machine. Almost two years later, and with a new machine to try it on, I thought I'd give it another go.

Runs nicer but man it's still such a huge mess. From the install process up, everything just feels undercooked. I'm always suspicious of any vehicle "sim" that starts with an external view turned on by default (looking at you, Forza and GT) and this hits that category. But my favourite part was how I couldn't dismiss menu pop-up text that lingered over the game screen whenever I dismissed the menu.

[Rhythm]

2 Game Pass belters I encountered this weekend:

The Chinatown Detective Agency - basically a remake/rethink of the "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?" model. Pixel-style point and click adventure which has you figuring out puzzles about locations around the world. Thoroughly entertaining stuff, with lots of real-world research to do. One of the buttons in the game literally opens your web browser so you can hunt for locations etc



And Citizen Sleeper - super-stylish RPG set on a space station of sorts. Run around exploring, carrying out work, running tasks. There's a dice-based element to carrying out actions that makes it a good challenge but the main draw is the art and the fantastic dialogue. By the devs of In Other Waters, which was a brilliant little game where you played as a Xenobiologist mapping out a strange new planet

[SuperMappy]

I recently bought FAR: Lone Sails on the steam summer sale for only 7.99 USD. It's an adorable little adventure, exploration game where you have to overcome obstacles to keep your craft moving along to some unknown destination. The craft itself also a puzzle as it slowly upgrades.

So far as I have played it, there are no enemies, I have never actually died in the game and there appears to be no time limits. The music is also great with an older light jazz soundtrack.

I am getting very bored with AAA games and FAR is a very pleasant surprise I have yet to get bored with.

[SuperMappy]

I recently bought FAR: Lone Sails on the steam summer sale for only 7.99 USD. It's an adorable little adventure, exploration game where you have to overcome obstacles to keep your craft moving along to some unknown destination. The craft itself also a puzzle as it slowly upgrades.

So far as I have played it, there are no enemies, I have never actually died in the game and there appears to be no time limits. The music is also great with an older light jazz soundtrack.

I am getting very bored with AAA games and FAR is a very pleasant surprise I have yet to get bored with.

I just finished it last night. It turns out your character can die if you do the wrong thing and it does have one very excellent and tense "Move like hell or die" moment. The entire play through only took 2.5 hours, you could probably complete it in an hour if you knew what to do in advance.

[Rhythm]

Sounds flipping great TBH

Still enjoying Citizen Sleeper and Chinatown Detective Agency but something prompted me to go back to one of my all-time faves this weekend - TheHunter Call of the Wild. It's just insanely chill. The outdoors is represented fantastically, tracking the animals is a good challenge and I genuinely like the real-time aspect to it. Want to walk 1km? You'd better assume it's going to take you a few minutes to get there!

[Misfit]

The Hunter Call of the Wild. It's just insanely chill. The outdoors is represented fantastically, tracking the animals is a good challenge and I genuinely like the real-time aspect to it. Want to walk 1km? You'd better assume it's going to take you a few minutes to get there!

Not something that would work for me. I'd still rather kill humans than animals!

Presumably, comes with some serious semi-automatic hardware to take down those evil rabbits and dear? Is the local high school available as DLC?*

*That's not a dig at you, I have no problem with the game or your desire to play it. I'm just feeling pretty grim about the US again today.

[Rhythm]

The Hunter Call of the Wild. It's just insanely chill. The outdoors is represented fantastically, tracking the animals is a good challenge and I genuinely like the real-time aspect to it. Want to walk 1km? You'd better assume it's going to take you a few minutes to get there!

Not something that would work for me. I'd still rather kill humans than animals!

Presumably, comes with some serious semi-automatic hardware to take down those evil rabbits and dear? Is the local high school available as DLC?*

*That's not a dig at you, I have no problem with the game or your desire to play it. I'm just feeling pretty grim about the US again today.

I know what you mean, and it's a very common reaction to avoid hurting animals in a game. I'm a vegan IRL so people find it odd that I enjoy this particular hunting game.

I've had a love/hate relationship with FPSes for a couple of decades now. Sure I had fun with the original Doom (because novelty) but outside that I've found it really difficult to enjoy them as a genre. The stuff where you're a soldier in active battle? Great. There's a genuine story reason for mowing people down. It requires active disassociation from the politics of the era surrounding the fights, but it's acceptable to my head that if you're a soldier, you'll be shooting folks. In things like Spec Ops: The Line and CoD Modern Warfare it leads to some genuinely shocking and impactful gameplay.

Things like Halo - still mostly OK but I start to have issues with the idea of a game where the aim is to take part in a campaign of indiscriminate alien genocide.

But then you get the "immersive sims" (Prey, Bioshock, Dishonored etc) where they claim to be "play it how you want, this is the thinking man's shooter" - and I have problems with that entire concept. Because a "thinking man" wouldn't be trying to shoot his way out of a conflict like that. For all the choice they claim to offer, it still amounts to "go here, kill these folks, move on". The action is entirely more involved than CoD or Battlefield but by not offering anything other than very lightweight dialogue options they break the very stories they're trying to tell.

So for FPSes I tend to stick to things like TheHunter (where you're taking part in photography missions or pest control, the tracking is involved and every shot matters - as soon as you fire your weapon every animal in the area will scatter, so you'd better make sure you're lined up right)) or I'll go all the way and play something like ARMA3, which is military simulation to the nth degree. One shot can and will floor you. And I'm OK with that - for me it makes a much more interesting game experience. Plus ARMA3 has amazing modding - want to do some orienteering/geocaching? Go for it! Want to play a murder mystery tracking people across an island? It's over here! Want to help a humanitarian aid campaign spread leaflets across war-ravaged towns? Yep, that's in here too.

Edit: TheHunter CotW is the first game I've ever encountered where you can sit on the edge of woodland watching the wind disturb the grasses of a clearing in front of you and you can actually tell which way the wind is blowing. There are lots of aids available to make it more "gamey" but even the animal tracking is amazing - spotting footprints in the grass or seeing some vegetation that's been disturbed. Even listening for calls - you quickly start to be able to recognise animals and the types of calls (warning/mating) just from the sound alone. It's brilliant stuff

[Rhythm]

Stumbled across a Steam bargain last night - Stacklands

At the core it's a resource management game but the way it plays is very cool. It's all card-based, so want to harvest berries? Drag a villager card on top of a berry bush card. Want to grow more berries? Drag a berry onto some soil to let a bush grow. Etc.

All the interactions are hidden at the outset, meaning it has the feel of one of those Doodle God games, and managing your actions against the limited number of cards gets really tough. In some ways it feels like a different take on Luck Be a Landlord

Either way, it's currently £3 on Steam and seems very decent so far

[VNVObit]

revisited Tesla vs Lovecraft (game of the year edition) on PS5 as currently £2.99 on PS store
also picked up Crimsonland (£1.99) another twin stick shooter with RPG elements (unlock weapons and power ups)
and finally picked up Super Destronaut DX-2 (also £1.99 at the moment) a more straightforward updated version of space invaders

All fun and worth their respective entry price