A gaming community free from the hype and oversaturation of current releases, catering to gamers who wait at least 12 months after release to play a game. Whether it's price, waiting for bugs/issues to be patched, DLC to be released, don't meet the system requirements, or just haven't had the time to keep up with the latest releases.
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Project Hospital, X4: Foundations, and Elite Dangerous.
I haven't played Project Hospital for a long time, but all of the updates made me want to play again. I'm enjoying it a lot so far.
I've also just came back after years away from X4 and ED. I'm just relearning the basic systems again, but can see myself putting in a lot of hours back into Elite Dangerous. X4 is a tough cookie for me, but I think it's definitely worth trying to invest a bit more of my time into.
Started playing the Talos Principle. Took a bit of tinkering to get it to work properly but now I’m loving it. Awesome puzzle game, highly recommended.
This week is more Enderal for me. A free total conversion of Skyrim (you need Skyrim obviously). It's a complete new game with new mechanics, story, skills, etc. It's fully voiced and waaaay better than Skyrim IMHO.
I’ll definitely check that out. Looks very promising.
Best thing: no level scaling. Yes you will die a lot in the beginning. But becoming more powerful is now actually worth it!
I stopped playing because it is a bit too hard for me. I keep getting killed by spiders. Maybe I'll give it another go.
I switched from melee to spellcaster in heavy armor. That made it a lot easier. Also spending all your learning points (buy books) and memory points (press Z, that took me far too long to figure out)
Oh sweet. I hate level scaling 99% of the time. It’s one of my biggest gripes with Skyrim, and with most games that implement it. It’s one of the many reasons I love the Souls franchise so much. Good to know that mod doesn’t have it.
CP2077, nearing the end of the phantom liberty expansion
I'm back to playing Colin McRae Rally 04 - mostly on desktop by I also finally took the time to set it up on a Steam Deck. It runs and plays great!
I love me some old rally games.
Hey! I feel like I haven’t seen you comment in a long time, I miss your write-ups you used to do on these posts.
I’m going to have to try Rally 04, I like rally games.
Man, I didn't expect people to remember me. Uhm... hi! ヾ(・ω・*)
I've been busy with less fun stuff for a while and when I did play games it wasn't for long enough to warrant a post unfortunately. I'm hoping for a more permanent return soon as I'm eying to start some titles that will fit this community again.
CMR04 is great! Still holds up really well, has a nice balance between arcade and sim in its driving model, looks simple but in a readable way and has a mod for widescreen resolutions on PC. It also has no problems on Linux which is a big win for me. Probably my favourite rally game of that era.
Oh shoot, I hope everything is okay.
Glad to know about both widescreen and Linux, those are both pretty important to me.
It's not but I make do. You'd be surprised how well hobbies and lack of sleep can help with that! I appreciate the sentiment though.
Same here, it was a really nice surprise. I love how well so many old titles work on the penguin.
I feel that. Hobbies have definitely helped me through many rough times. Dark Souls and practicing piano have both gotten me through a lot. I’m lucky enough to have a kid on the way, she’ll be my first, but I am worried that I might go through a dark period and won’t have time to use my hobbies as much to help me out. Maybe raising a kid will take that place. I’ve heard it’s very rewarding.
I usually play older games (hence me being on here), and when I made the switch to Linux I was very happy to see almost all my games play flawlessly. Even newer games or somewhat newer games run great. I’m currently playing through the Talos Principle (2014 I think) and getting 350-400 fps. It’s certainly not the most demanding game but that’s impressive to me.
Man, I'd be terrified to have a kid honestly. I've had enough experience with taking care of people to know I REALLY don't want to deal with that if I have a choice - I'm too much of a self-sacrificing idiot for that. Good luck though! My friends with kids are happy about their choices so I hope you'll end up the same way.
My first experience with Linux made me swear I'll never going to touch it again, funnily enough. Now here I am, running it as a main OS on everything I can and having a great time with both games and any kind of personal projects I can come up with. Heck, the fact that some games run better than on Windows is still kinda crazy to me at times even though I understand why. It's amazing how much things progressed.
I am indeed terrified to have a kid. Excited but terrified. I feel like I can’t even take care of myself and now I’m supposed to be responsible for a whole other person in a matter of weeks? Wild.
I only switched to Linux recently. I started with mint, then quickly switched to Bazzite after hearing it’s good for gaming, but I found out I don’t like rpm-ostree so I’ll probably be switching to another deb/ubuntu based distro again soon. Either that or go full masochist and do arch. Probably a bad idea though. I’ll probably either go back to mint again or try kubuntu (I really don’t like GNOME). Which distro do you run on your main gaming machine?
Satisfactory
I think almost everyone knows this game. I‘m in phase 4 and about to start producing the needed items. All I‘m gonna say is that I would‘ve gone insane if not for community-made blueprints. My biggest gripes with the game are how awful it feels to build a train track, how dumb drones are (cause otherwise everyone would ditch trains, I reckon), and that the hoverpack doesn‘t have a built-in jetpack for when you‘re out of electrical grid range. All in all, I probably prefer this kinda game to be isometric/2D, it‘s finnicky to build a big factory in 3D, although more satisfying to then see it in 3D. I know this sounds negative but that’s just cause it’s quicker to list the negatives since there‘s too many positives - I did have a good time, as my 100+ hours thus far would suggest.
Horizon Chase Turbo
Putting the finishing touches on this one and, my God, get the Senna Forever DLC, it‘s the absolute best part of it! To anyone who doesn‘t know this game: It‘s an old-school racing game that runs at full 90 even on the Deck. I mean old old-school when racing games were 2D and scrolling, although this one is 3D it feels the same. It‘s nice to have a high fps racer on the Deck, so I recommend it. The aforementioned DLC gives it a 1st person camera and F1 racing, and it‘s a match made in heaven!
it's mostly been Soulstone Survivors
It's pretty great "vampire survivors"-like game, with a bunch of characters, weapons for each, passive and "active" skills. I put quotes around "active" because all skills are used automatically all the time, they're just the attacks/abilities you pick up during the run.
The game has pretty neat 3d flat shaded / "low poly" fantasy-style. Skills have varying effects on screen, anywhere from a greenish bubbling circle to massive explosions... The spell effects get REALLY obnoxious at higher levels when everything causes at minimum screensize explosion which obscures everything. Luckily there's a setting to turn down spell visibility, I just wish it'd have some dynamic option to allow higher effects at the start of the run, and gear it down towards the end.
Cosmoteer
It's a 2D space sim where you build spaceships, manage subsystems, break up pirate ships to add parts to yours (even mid battle), with absolute freedom to do whatever and mechanics that encourage experimentation. Man, I don't remember when a game pulled me in so bad.
Back to playing Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Playing a rogue Grey Warden dwarf this run through, and I'm already loving the character.
I turned off the always on waypoints this time, which should probably be the default setting. It's more fun to explore than to mindlessly follow the floating dot.
Looking forward to kicking some Venatori butts.
I just played through Oceanhorn, and now I’m playing Oceanhorn 2. Cute little games with an interesting story and some kind of basic puzzles. But the gameplay is fun.
CP2077. Love the looks. Gameplay is fine. City is mostly backdrop yes, most of the focus seems to have been at crafting a bombastic main quest line. So far so good, just wish there were more depth to the city and its systems.
It really felt like they were pressured into making it open world or something. I've said before that it's a really good, cinematic action game that is stapled to an average open world backdrop, and the two halves work more against eachother than they work together.
If you can stomach the ludonarrative dissonance and maintain your suspension of disbelief though it's a really good game at this point.
Also surprised it’s still buggy after all this time. Nothing too serious, but still. Treating it as a flawed but pretty action adventure game with neon lights is the only way.
Maybe CDPR underestimated the effort to create a convincing modern metropolis open world. It’s a whole different ball game to the small villages and towns of the Witcher. Maybe they’ll get it right in the sequel, if they make one.
Links Awakening - all time favourite and is fun on switch or gameboy
Age of Wonders 3.
Most games tend to go the same way. I kindly and peacefully expand my empire by slaughtering mobs while the bot players destroy each other. Eventually i hold over half the map, tens of thousands in gold and stacks of armies on the borders. When the final bot unavoidably declares war on me, I overwhelm their least defended cities, tank their economy and watch it lose its armies due to lack of gold, giving me an easy win.
Started out trying to play F.E.A.R. platinum edition and Tomb Raider GOTY edition. I just don't like story games... TR is far more story heavy than F.E.A.R. but both have plenty of cut scenes. I also feel like maybe TR was created during the peak of quick time events because the first half hour was just mash some button repeatedly to win the movie (the game uses the word "mash", that's not just me). I ended up playing Dead Cells and Gradius V instead. I suppose I just like more arcadey style games.
I finally finished downloading all the digital games I had for the PS4 that had single player content and disable the network connection in order to prepare for an eventual jailbreak, so maybe I'll play DOOM 2016 this week. Never did finish it.
I played F.E.A.R. just a few months ago and it's so good man. Holds up so well. Still looks great too. Are you using the EchoPatch? I found it to be just a super solid timeless FPS that can stand on its own purely based on gameplay. Apart from the bizarrely anemic assault rifle all the weapons are so satisfying to use, and the AI still feels surprisingly good even in 2025.
Also, make sure you play the first expansion Extraction Point, it's imo even better than the base game. Don't play the second expansion though.
I played TR probably back in 2018-2019 ish, I remember mostly enjoying it but nothing really stuck with me. I almost started a new playthrough yesterday actually but decided to make my way through my backlog instead.
Final Fantasy IX on my little Miyoo Flip. I've never played a FF game before and it's my wife's favourite so I thought why not. So far I've helped steal a ladder, had a concert ticket turn out to be a fake :( and stole gil from a few houses and I'll play some more this evening. It's also a beautiful looking game.
Heroes of Hammerwatch: It's a roguelike 2d isometric RPG. Haven't played much yet but so far I haven't found a reason to stop playing.
Fire Emblem: Three Houses. My kid and I assigned video games to each other for the summer and that's what I got assigned. They're playing Persona 5 Golden.
Not a patient game anytime soon, but they loved the original Fantasy Life and we've been playing and loving the new one too.
I'm playing - but not recommending - Blasphemous this week. It is quite possibly the least fun I've had playing a video game. It's a game that is specifically designed to infuriate you and waste your time, and I guess in that respect they really nailed it. If the bosses weren't so easy I'd say playing Blasphemous feels like what people who have never played a Soulslike thinks playing Dark Souls feels like.
It's a shame too because I want to like this game. I want to love it. The art direction is great. The music is good. The lore and world building is interesting. The level design on a macro level - the interconnected world and the way shortcuts link areas together - remind me of Dark Souls 1 in the best possible way.
It's just an absolute chore to play. The mixture of deliberate but awful game design combined with absolutely terrible execution makes for quite the mix. You can't make what is essentially 80% a platformer filled with instant death hazards when the controls are this clunky, movement feels this bad and hitboxes and ledge/ladder grabs are this atrocious.
Contact damage on every single enemy (with all damage in the game having knockback on you) is a lazy and unfun design choice. Enemy placement - especially projectile launching enemies - is done to maximise impact so you can't quickly skip through areas on subsequent visits but have to slowly clear them out lest you'll get knocked into some instant death spikes. And there is a lot of backtracking required, both for the quests (that are unsolvable without a Wiki by the way) and for retrieving your body after dying.
I'm in the final non-DLC area now but I'm very close to just calling it a day instead of succumbing to the sunk cost fallacy. I'm really not having fun and it's taking every ounce of willpower to not just do what I want to do, which is fire up NG+ of Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree.
I spent exactly 1 hour with Blasphemous before refunding it. Too much platforming for me and the combat is not exactly fun and didn't feel fresh.
Best combat in any metroidvania is F.I.S.T: Forged in Shadow Torch and Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, IMO. They're almost like character action games: launchers, on-the-fly weapon switching, dash/jump canceling… etc. Full combo systems—only thing missing is a style meter.
If you thought the first hour of Blasphemous had too much platforming then hoo boy. Just wait until you see the endgame areas. I agree about the combat completely, and also the character customization and progression is very lacking which also reduces my enjoyment. Most of the character upgrades are completely useless - wow, an uppercut as a 4th attack in your attack string? You barely have enough time between dodges for two attacks, let alone 4. A charged attack that takes three years to channel? When are we supposed to have time to use this?
I'll look into F.I.S.T., looks kinda cool. Will keep an eye on any sales. The Lost Crown is on my radar too, I recall it got rave reviews.
I really do want to recommend Mandragora though. It is more heavy on the Soulslike and ARPG than platforming, which I personally really liked. Heavy emphasis on character progression, upgrades and skill builds. Still plenty of fun Metroidvania elements with secrets and ability gated sections of earlier areas and so on. Heavily recommended!
I agree with all of your points about Blasphemous, good and bad. I knew the games (both Blasphemous 1 and 2) received mediocre reviews, but I still purchased both together during a sale because I really liked its art and setting.
However, when I played Blasphemous early last year, I had just got back into the platformers genre after around a long break. I had just finished Hollow Knight (just the first ending or two, I didn't have the time or the patience to finish the other endings).
The wonderful art and interesting story did not alleviate the pains of the gameplay. Its contrast with Hollow Knight only made it worse. It was clunky, and the game seemed to (unintentionally) work against the player.
I did complete the first ending, as well as the first ending for the sequel. The mechanics of the sequel are a bit more forgiving, thankfully.
I still would not recommend the games, unless one really likes the art and setting of the games.
Also, thank you for introducing me to Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree. I have bookmarked it, and hope to play it soon.
Yeah I got it on the summer sale because it was 90% off and I was on a Metroidvania/Soulslike-kick after Mandragora. Honestly, had I known how much platforming it had I wouldn't have bought it even for a dollar. I'm not really a platformer guy, I've avoided Hollow Knight for a reason (also I'm not a god gamer and from what I understand HK is impossibly difficult).
Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree on the other hand I had an absolute blast with. I love character progression and customisation and creating a build from the PoE-esque skill tree tickled my brain just right. I'm honestly torn between NG+ and doing a second playthrough with a different playstyle/build.
It also had a better balance of gameplay for my tastes than Blasphemous: the bosses were more fun and the platforming was much less frustrating. Being able to teleport to any "bonfire" from anywhere through the map was also so nice. I like when a game isn't deliberately wasting your time.
Death Stranding 2. I'm taking my sweet ass time with this game. Absolutely love it.
Decided to test the Warframe waters. Only about 2 hours in, it seems pretty good so far. I'm still trying to see how much grind there really is once the intro is over.
He Is Coming - I've been able to make it to day 3 already, but the game feels a little shallow. Not ready to drop it yet, but will see.
If in-person tabletop gaming is okay here, my group is about to start one called Don't Tell Mom & Dad, an RPG in the vein of Stranger Things. You play a bunch of kids having supernatural adventures around their town.
Animal Crossing New Horizons (about 15 hours in)
I really enjoy the crafting, feels more involved compared to New Leaf.
The wandering village
It is a nice little recourse management game. What makes it special is that you need to do it on the back of an ancient "animal". If you befriend (it trusts your judgement ) or tame it can you tell it what to do like where to go (so you can pick a bio), sleep, eat, run, walk and so on. I went for the befriend route, hurting it by ripping out resources from it didn't sit well with me (but I am very curious, because you do miss out on a lot). The story is pretty simple but it is nicely paced and I do like the lore. I actually didn't really think the main quest would be anything special so I was happily surprised.
I just started Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep, as I make my way through the collection. I'm only about an hour in, but it seems like it might be a nice change of pace from the previous games. I am also getting huge Star Wars vibes off this one. Ven is a padawan, Terra is not yet granted the rank of Master. Eraqus reminds me of Qui-Gon a little, and Xehanort was clearly a Sith-y motherfucker even before what went down with Ansem.
Lots and lots of Vintage Story. It feels like a much more mature version of Minecraft and a combination of the best features of it and games like The Forest, even though it's still in early access.
I’ll have to look into it. Sounds promising by your description.