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Got quite the line up to see me through the dark months.

Currently romping through Skyrim (again) with Breath of the Wild, Witcher III and the NES, SNES, Mega Drive and N64 archives from Nintendo Online to plug through.

I should probably crack on with Witcher III or Breath of the Wild though, as I’ve never played those before.

 nels1031 wrote:
My last match I came up to the spider being killed and the duo who killed it were laughing about how they were the last folks standing and congratulating each other. I promptly murdered them and took their loot and the boss bounty. Booked it to the extraction point and went up like 15 levels. So much fun!

that's too funny. One of the reasons I love the game.

I'm way too much of a wuss for solo. I've played maybe 10 solo games and managed to leg it with a bounty three times. I need to give it another go and just play to kill rather than getting bounties.

I was having a fun old time the other day with a hunting bow and the bornheim with a stock. Only really tried using the bow recently, the sights confused the hell out of me.

Clocked Cyberpunk 2077 this time managing to get Johnny Silverhand to 70% so I stormed Arasaka single handed and it was pretty fun. Slaughtering guard after guard as they cry out how can it be one merc!? All the while my body is deteriorating. Badass.

has someone bought Victoria 3 ? if yes, what are your thoughts?

Not Online!!! wrote:
has someone bought Victoria 3 ? if yes, what are your thoughts?

Can't bring myself to buy another paradox game on release.

Been watching some Let's plays. Its... somewhat interesting, but also kinda weird, and I definitely don't have a grasp of all the mechanics.
Was watching quill18 play Canada and he's debating attacking the US because of colonial border gore created by the absorption of native american tribal lands, and a mexican-american war is going on, and the way the game is counting American conscripts as line battalions is making him hesitate. (The two countries looked fairly even on paper, but effectively the US is 300 regiments ahead and steamrolling. At a price of about 9 million pounds (all currency is in pounds), but who knows if the AI has to _really_ care about shortfalls and debt?

The colonialism thing pissed him off because there was nothing he could do about it- the US filled in the 'indian lands' in central Canada at 20x the rate he could, and he couldn't alter the situation in any way.

Wars seem forgone conclusions- you either built up enough military infrastructure before the war which gives you more regiments, you're riding the coat of a powerful ally or overlord, or... you'll simply lose when the war happens. Its primarily an economic and governance game, so a more detached war mechanic makes sense, but it reminds me of some of the worst excesses of early EUIV, where if France decides to crush you, it does.

Economics and trade seem interesting, but there are still moments that player decisions just seem off the table. But some of it is 'build buildings that produce the most expensive products, repeat but stop before you crash the market price, pick next product.' Later you need to build stuff that produces things your better industries need to offset the costs of products that are used by your production, but its a pretty mellow supply/demand loop. Labor force is the big limiter, but it really depends on what country you play. Big populations make for a completely different game, but not necessarily a more interesting one.

Governance is a matter of clicking buttons, waiting for a success chance to proc and not pissing off important interest groups in a way that feels mechanical. (for example, with not entirely real numbers): Land owners will be at -10 and will radicalize if you grant rights to women, so enact workhouses to give landowners +15, then do rights of women and they'll be at +5 and be fine. /shrug. Attitude decay (the +5 will drop over time) makes this slightly more complicated, as will mollifying half-a-dozen groups, but you're essentially picking a playstyle and massaging approval numbers so no groups rebel. First time through, most people will probably make a complete mess of their government. Once people are more familiar with the game, it seems like it will be a solved system.

Bureaucracy, authority and <whatever the diplomatic currency is> seem interesting. Rather than the mana pools of older paradox games, its essentially a budget modified by various factors- tech, buildings, laws, and you can spend it down and alter things on the fly, even go negative (though that brings penalties).

Yeah, I saw it's up for sale now, I looked at the steam page, and it looks interesting, but ...well, it's a Paradox game and I don't wanna put up with them any more. Used to sink hundreds of hours into their games starting with Hearts of Iron 1.

The stuff they pull with DLC though is just a major turn-off which made me keep my hands off their games, which prior to that really enjoyed. Oh well.





So the big update to Age of Empires 4 is out, incuding the two new civilizations. Usually I only ever played HRE so far, but I tried out the Malians now, and they're rather fun to play. Feels much more dynamic than what I usually do. And so many other interesting differences.

Bought RPG Maker MZ with a discount from buying the Humble Bundle. I've been making for fun a game based in the medieval age of my Angaran Chronicles setting. I don't know where it's going, just going to be a small-scale RPG set in a region of a country called Everdeen.

Not Online!!! wrote:
has someone bought Victoria 3 ? if yes, what are your thoughts?

I haven't bought it (I was looking forward to it, but can't afford anything right now), but I did listen to a YouTuber that I'd never listened to before trash all over it. He's apparently a fan of Victoria 2, but hates the new game. He talked about grossly simplified systems, teleporting armies, the East India Company involving itself in a war between the US and Mexico (the teleporting armies came up here, given that the East India Company is on the other side of the world), a complete lack of pop-driven actions (something that capitalist pops did in Victoria 2), and more.

Starship Troopers:Terran Command
It's everything a fan of the movie (singular, definitely only one) would hope for.
Shoot bugs, blatant propaganda and you can actually click and find out more!

Extra content coming down the line.

Playing Bomber Crew and getting my but kicked in it.

 KamikazeCanuck wrote:
So what are you playing right now and how do you like it?

Nothing. But I'd be interested to if anyone knows of a decent Warhammer mod for Mount&Blade?

Which MnB? Warband has Warsword which is pretty good. Bannerlord has one in development, but I forgot the mod's name

 Bobthehero wrote:
Which MnB? Warband has Warsword which is pretty good. Bannerlord has one in development, but I forgot the mod's name

Either. I don't have Bannerlord yet, but I'll head over and check into those, thanks.

Every time I think I've stabilized the situation in Bomber Crew - Bamn! Plane Crash. Anyway I think I've stabilized the situation now...

Also, playing some Frostpunk DLC: The Last Autumn.

Wow so i guess nobody on here is playing Terra Invicta. To be fair i'm getting a bit tired of it myself. I've finally got good or at least decent ships that can win fights against the aliens and net me exotic materials.

UV lasers are good at shooting down missiles and not quite as good at destroying incoming projectile weapons (railguns, coilguns, etc). I'm actually liking tier 3 coilguns myself. Generally you know weapons are good when they take a lot of research to get (12.5k or 20k research or so).

I'm also using anti-matter stuff now but only barely. It's ridiculously small in amount.


Aside from all this there's not much else to say about the game. After a long period it gets pretty dull but it's addictive for some reason. I think the space battles when they work and you finally work out how to win becomes extremely fun.

More Deep Rock Galactic alongside Power Wash simulator, which, soothing cleaning jobs aside, actually had a story and it takes you places!

Rimworld! New expansion is a blast

I'm playing lots of Homeworld Mobile. The game is a simplified Homeworld. You command a task group focused around a Hiigaran exploratory vessel (your flagship) that has been assigned to explore the far side of a jump gate leading to a distant galaxy. Your flagship functions as a battle carrier, able to carry squadrons of strike craft, and accompanied by one to three escort craft (frigates and destroyers). Unlike the Mothership of the titular games, your flagship also has an impressive array of weapons, and is typically the most powerful member of your task group. Like the mothership, your flagship can process ore collected by your resource collectors, and turn it into a variety of small ships, parts, and modules. You travel from system to system, complete missions, fight enemy ships, mine asteroids, get loot boxes, and conduct research. When the chat system works properly (more on that below), you have the option to group up with others for difficult missions, and for the special strike missions that reward the opportunity to get some of the best blueprints.

All in all, I'm enjoying it. However...

While the game is very much in a playable state, it's got problems with bugs. For example, when I finish refining ore and want to collect it, I click the Collect button, and am greeted with the usual spinning circle indicating that something is happening. And then the spinning circle goes away, and I get my processed metal. But occasionally, the spinning circle doesn't go away. Instead, the screen essentially freezes. I can leave the screen and do other stuff. But I can't do anything with the refinery. The only way to fix this is to shut down and restart the game.

Two bugs in particular are causing problems. One has a workaround. The other doesn't.

The first is that if you order a strike craft squadron to launch while another squadron is landing, the squadron that you ordered to launch effectively gets "stuck". It stays in your flagship's hanger, and refuses to leave. It stays this way until you leave the current map. Fortunately, most people who've been playing for a while have figured out that so long as you don't tell the squadron to launch while another one is landing, you won't trigger this bug.

The other particularly problematic bug is the chat system. Most of the time when you start the game, the chat channel has a lock icon instead of the speech bubble it's supposed to have. When you get the lock icon, you can't chat. And you can't hear others chatting. You are essentially deaf and mute where the chat channels are concerned. Again, this happens most of the time when you start the game. The only fix for it is to restart the game until the chat works. This in and of itself wouldn't be a terrible thing, except for the strike missions. Strike missions are missions that allow up to three players to join together to tackle a particularly difficult goal - so far, either defending a station or destroying a pirate base. When you want to start a strike mission, you hop into the mission lobby and then send an announcement out to the global channel. Usually, two other people will join you. But if you can't use the chat channels, you can't announce that you're launching a strike. You also can't listen for others to announce strikes. Even worse, if you attempt to enter a strike lobby while your chat is locked, you'll be confronted with the spinning circle of please wait... and the game will stay there. You're effectively frozen, and unable to do anything until you shut down the game and restart it.

Note that brand new players don't have access to the chat channels until several missions in.

Aside from that, I'm having fun. While the combat is nowhere near as complex as that in the Homeworld games, you do have some options. There's a story that effectively acts as an extended tutorial (which leads to one of my complaints about the game; some stuff that I would consider basic gets unlocked awfully late, imo; though since I'm now past all that it no longer matters to me), though it ends abruptly with clear indications that the developers intend to continue it. The game uses a grind system with rare drops to keep you playing (which is one of the complaints that people have about the game; some of the stuff is extremely rare even if you spend tons of time playing the game; if you don't spend much time, you effectively have no real chance of getting any of it). On the other hand, at this time the best stuff is not something that can be obtained by dropping cash. This isn't Diablo Immortal. The only way to get the good stuff is by playing the game.

I've still been playing Hunt: Showdown, the new questlines that have been added for Halloween have been very fun. It's nice to create totally different playstyles. Really changed up the game.

Also started playing a bit of Deep Rock Galactic. The new plaguefall stuff is great fun. I love the gunner's new grenade. Dakka dakka dakka indeed.

The gun grenade is an amazing crowd controller, just be careful of the friendly fire!

I like the new plague fall content a lot, it's a bit of a hassle to juggle when playing solo, but a fun extra objective nonetheless.

 Olthannon wrote:
I've still been playing Hunt: Showdown, the new questlines that have been added for Halloween have been very fun. It's nice to create totally different playstyles. Really changed up the game.

Yeah I finished the event yesterday. It was a lot of fun. I felt like no quest was too hard. Possibly with the exception of blowing someone up with a red barrel. Though I got lucky with that one. Also the quests kind of taught new players the game. Like yeah, smoke bombs kill immolators and fire is great for dealing with hellhounds. Overall a great game hunt: showdown and a very good event.

Sooooooon I will have my copy of God of War, Ragnarok.

Well looking forward to it as it’s predecessor was amazing.

 Nerak wrote:

 Olthannon wrote:
I've still been playing Hunt: Showdown, the new questlines that have been added for Halloween have been very fun. It's nice to create totally different playstyles. Really changed up the game.

Yeah I finished the event yesterday. It was a lot of fun. I felt like no quest was too hard. Possibly with the exception of blowing someone up with a red barrel. Though I got lucky with that one. Also the quests kind of taught new players the game. Like yeah, smoke bombs kill immolators and fire is great for dealing with hellhounds. Overall a great game hunt: showdown and a very good event.

Nice one with the barrel, I had the gods of the Bayou very much against me. Trying to blow up meatheads in a solo game, I went 3/4 around the map hitting every compound on only found 2

I had the headshot one as my last challenge and I tells ya I had the worst luck. Amount of times I had someone lined up and they would move half an inch and I'd miss completely. Sod's Law and all that.

I'm planning to pick up Dorfromantik soon, as that looks like a wonderfully pleasant game. Very similar to Islanders if anyone played that. Worth checking out if you want something relaxing.

Finished up DMC5 last night. Pretty spectacular showing. A bit easy in parts, especially right after Elden Ring, but they didn't hold back for the final boss.

.) Bayonetta 3 looks pretty underwhelming. Shame. :/
.) Total War: Shogun 2 still is excellent.
.) Kenshi is one cool game.

Currently I've been playing Minecraft, and Spiderweb Games Avadon. Nothing terribly glitzy, but lots of fun. The former is meditative, and the latter is deep and strategic.

 Sigur wrote:
.) Bayonetta 3 looks pretty underwhelming. Shame. :/

People only seem disappointed in the story which is pretty par for the series. I'm saving it as a Christmas gift Idea for my family but plan to play it as soon as I can.

In the meantime clearing my backlog has brought me to No More Heroes 3. Kind of annoying so much of it is built off of the side game that got largely panned. Curious if I should give it a shot, but probably won't bother. This one is so far pretty fun. Certainly no shortage of creativity on disaplay and the combat is pretty engaging. A bit heavy in the cutscene department though, which is kind of funny given how nonsensical the story is, even by NMH standards.

Six ages ride like the wind. It’s a spiritual successor to king of dragon pass. I came to understand it a bit better by using Ventures differently and realizing how difficult it actually is to produce enough food. The secret is to use the herding venture. Also read some guides on how combat works. It’s needlessly complicated and should have included way waaaay more tooltips. Still a very good game though not as good as dragon pass was.

Really struggling on Breath of the Wild. Just not adapting to the boss level of combat.

I’ll get there though.

But for now? Pokémon Scarlett. A nice palette cleanser of a game. Something to while away hours on something not stressful or overly challenging.

Sooo many hours put into Pokémon Scarlet this weekend! 5 gyms down, 2 Team Star bases wrecked, 1 Titan downed.

Mostly I’m just bimbling around picking fights when I find something or someone in need of a good kicking.