Just got home from holiday a couple of days ago, and while the plan was to open up my laptop and continue my Kerbal Space Program game, it’s simply too hot here these days to enjoy anything for fun. So I mostly just do “nothing” while playing chess.
Looking forward to colder temperatures next week.
I feel that, it’s scorching where I live too (at least for me, I prefer colder temps). I had to buy an extra portable AC this year otherwise I’d be in the same boat as you.
Just finished Split Fiction.
How was it? My wife was interested in checking it out.
We liked It Takes Two much better. But if you need to play a co-op game it is decent. ITT was more whimsical and fun. If I had to play it again, I’d rather play ITT.
We played ITT but stopped after the elephant thing. We’ve considered finishing it but never got around to it.
I’m finally playing Horizon zero dawn. Liking it a lot so far.
I’m on maternity leave and finally finished the extra levels in Opus Magnum this week after figuring out how to sit with the baby and still use both hands
I’m going to have to figure out how to do that too. I’ve got my first coming pretty soon. I get 8 weeks parental leave so I don’t have quite as much time as my wife gets to figure all that stuff out, maybe I should practice before the baby comes.
A stretchy wrap is great for newborns since they’re often too small for a normal carrier even with an insert. Some brands make ones with buckles if you don’t want to fiddle with tying it on every time. I use Boba but there’s a bunch of similar brands at the same price point.
I hate to recommend reddit here, but scrolling through babywearing helped me a ton with figuring out what a safe carry looks like for a tiny baby.
I appreciate the info. Thanks!
I got AC: Unity on sale on steam so I’ve been replaying that. The controls are pretty jank and rough, but I’m still enjoying it.
I’ve had a fair few talks on here recently about Unity. I liked it way more than the general consensus. I’ve heard there’s a really good mod for it that fixes nearly all of the problems, but I haven’t tried it personally.
I was looking at some, but there aren’t too many that aren’t just new outfits or skins to play with; at least on nexus.
Edit: they did a lot with Unity that I actually really liked. Between the co-op multiplayer missions/heists and story, you also had murder mysteries to help solve, and the “Paris Stories” (I actually quite like them. The Madame Tussaud ones are cool), on top of the assassin contracts. The gear customization was also probably my favorite of any other AC game aside from maybe Odyssey. I also kinda like the city events too, they let me roleplay a peacekeeper of the people type of character.
I haven’t played Mirage or Shadows, but I wouldn’t mind if they brought back some more “detective”/vigilante type stuff in the future.
I just checked, the mod I was referring to is ACUFixes.
Yeah customization was good in that game, I also seem to remember liking customization in Syndicate but I can’t remember it now.
So I’ve played with that mod now for about a day, and it’s really nice. The toggleable hood is a very nice touch, being able to shoot or drop bombs almost whenever is amazing, and they fixed the window thing.
I play this game almost exclusively with a controller, so I can’t really take “full” advantage of the mod, but a lot of the parkour stuff still translates as it’s just a different button map.
I also got a cloth physics mod to fix the stuff/heavy cloth physics, and it’s just an absolutely incredible feeling to have the long coats actually flowing when you move again.
Oh good, I’m glad I recommended it then. I’ll have to try the mod when I next play Unity. No idea when that’ll be though.
They had a lot of good ideas in Unity. It’s such a shame that its poor launch basically single-handedly caused Ubisoft to pivot into the RPG style AC games instead.
Even though the controls are somewhat clunky, the concept of the free run up/down in Unity is amazing, and could have ended up being truly stellar had they continued to work on it. When you get it to work in Unity and you string together a nice parkour sequence you feel like a million bucks. The animations are just the best in the series, and Paris is the best AC city they ever created (and it’s not close).
Tbf I didn’t mind the RPG ones. I think Origins struck the better balance of having a linear story while still letting you build Bayek how you wanted.
I liked Odyssey, but I didn’t really care for how there were multiple endings, because it doesn’t make sense from a narrative or lore standpoint. The Animus is supposed to show us the genetic memories of people who lived in the past, so shouldn’t everything that happens in the Animus actually have happened in the past? Why are there multiple choice endings, or discussions for that matter? Still, it was fun for the power fantasy it was.
Valhalla was just too much.
To be honest they kind of just gave up on the whole modern day angle, which I personally find a shame. But I agree with you, it makes no sense to have multiple endings given what the Animus is supposed to be. I mean, that’s the whole reason we were getting stuff like “Game Over: Ezio never killed civilians” earlier.
Still knocking around Enderal.
That game was so boring and idk, depressing
I don’t like Skyrim very much (especially compared to Morrowind or Oblivion) so it might be just that
Enderal brings the Skyrim Engine much closer to the Morrowind experience, for me, both in terms of story and exploration. It’s refreshing to have an open world game that’s dense and clearly hand-crafted instead of nearly empty.
I get that it’s grimdark and punishes optimism and that’s not for everyone, especially given the state of our real world right now. I’m a little bit spoiled on the ending and maybe I’ll feel differently once I’m hit with by twist with the full weight of narrative behind it.
Just finished prototype 1 and 2 for the first time since I was a kid. Very fun and definitely recommend both, but you could probably get away with just 2.
I should not have been playing a game that violent as a kid lol
The message, especially in the second one, is actually pretty positive. And the dark humour even in mission objectives is awesome. My favourite example being that you find out some of the scientists you have in a helicopter are trying to do eugenics, so your objective is to fly them as high as possible and jump out to “fuck over the scientists”. Lol
I remember wanting to check out the second one when it first came out but never did. I totally forgot about those games actually. Maybe I’ll pick them up sometime
I finished Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree this week, and I had an absolute blast with it. I bought it because it was written by Bloodlines-writer Brian Mitsoda, but while the story ended up being serviceable at most I really loved the gameplay. It’s very light on platforming - which I loved because I hate platforming - and the PoE inspired skill tree added a dimension to the 2.5D Soulslike that really tickled my brain just right. The Metroidvania elements were well done with lots of exploration, shortcuts and secrets and new parts of old areas opening up with each new method of traversal unlocked. Difficulty felt pretty good too, I’m starting to feel like I’m over the super difficult games and this never got too frustrating. Plus it does have accessibility options. In fact, I liked it so much I was extremely tempted to jump right back in and do NG+, and that is a rarity for me. I was thinking second playthrough first with a different playstyle, but I ended up really loving my build by the end.
Instead though I tried out Blasphemous. I got it on the summer sale at 90% off and thought it could satiate the same craving as NG+ of Mandragora. I’m about a third of the way through now though and… I’m not sure I like it. The world building is amazing and I do really love the atmosphere, story and lore. However, a lot of the gameplay design just feels annoying and unfun for the sake of it. I understand that it’s supposed to be because the theme of the game is all about the virtue of suffering but… I don’t know. My life sucks enough as it is, I don’t need to hate myself more. Also there is an enormous amount of platforming for a game with clunky controls and janky detection for hitboxes and ledge grabs and whatnot. If I knew how much platforming it had I wouldn’t have bought it, even for a dollar. We’ll see how it goes but I’m very close to shelving it as I’m not really having fun.
As a palate cleanser today I played through GRIS, which was also 90% off on the sale. While I generally hate puzzle platformers, this is more of an interactive artwork than anything and thankfully the puzzles and platforming bits were very simple and forgiving. I enjoyed it a lot, it’s an absolutely gorgeous game, a very short (couple of hours) emotional journey through grief with a fantastic score and some stunning visuals. Definitely recommend it. It’s a perfect intermission game in-between longer titles.
I’ve been back on COD Mobile this week. I’m just doing F2P. They had a collaboration with Gundam so that drew me back in. The Gundam TDM mode is really nice.
Contrasting that: I got SmokePatch set up with PES 2021 (on Linux!). I moved from EA FC to eFootball when it became too much like a slot machine. while the 30th anniversary stuff in eFootball looks cool, it’s turning into a slot machine as well. SmokePatch doesn’t have any mtx, it has great community addons, and it retained Master League. Enjoying the immersion of my favorite team, their stadium, and commentary in my preferred language.
If I get a little more free time, I’ll finish the last three chapters of Fire Emblem Warriors. I just worry that my team isn’t leveled up enough yet, so I might have to do some stories in History Mode first.
Been playing unravel. When I’m done I’ll play unravel two. Got them both for $10 the other day on steam
I’ve never played the first one but Unravel 2 is awesome. Played it with a friend years back and it was one of our favourites to play together.
The first one is great. It has a really sweet story, too. It’s my chill game. I love how it has no fights, just puzzles.
I’ll definitely be sure to check it out sometime.
Euro Truck Simulator 2
The week that I pack away my wheel/pedals is the same time I get the urge to go back to ETS2… :D
Controller and a numpad for extra buttons works really well. Obviously not as immersive but is much easier/quicker to jump in and start playing.
Now I want to unpack my wheel and pedals and it’s your fault ! 😆
And room for it*
timberborn
The new zip lines are a real game changer
monster hunter rise
For the first time in forever I am playing multiple games at the same time.
Lands of Lore: Throne of Chaos. I had that game as a kid but I don’t think I ever got any further than the first enemy. And it’s amazing! The whole game is dubbed. And it has four protagonists to choose from, each with their individual voice lines about basically any situation or item you come across. And all the NPC’s lines match them and they address you by name.
And the graphics are super beautiful. Pixel graphics but with great details and animations. Like when you get your spellbook you get a super elaborate T-1000-like animation of some droplets forming a scroll.
X-Wing via XWVM: The old X-Wing game with updated graphics and quality of life improvements. Just awesome! It’s still an alpha but basically plays like a beta. I have hardly any bugs, just occasional crashes, and none are game breaking. And supposedly they are already pretty far along with TIE Fighter compatibility. Can’t wait to play that. TIE Fighter TC is nice and all, but stuffing everything into the X-Wing Alliance engine feels pretty clunky while XWVM just works.
Cyberpunk 2077: My son bought it on sale and I wanted to try it as well, although I don’t really like cyberpunk. Too realistic. But the game is great. Plays like a combination of Deus Ex and GTA. I’d say it feels more like the original Deus Ex than the newer Deus Ex games. Maybe with slightly less open levels. But not much.
Limbo and Inside: The games are about to be delisted from GOG so I got them quickly. It’s chill to play which suits me well. Love it so far.
I didn’t know Limbo and Inside were about to be delisted. They’re some of my favourite shorter games I’ve ever played, especially Inside. I already own them on every platform I’ve owned since they released (PC, Xbox, PlayStation, iOS, Android) otherwise I’d be getting it now on GOG. Those games are awesome.
I’m excited to play them! I also got them yesterday due to the impending delisting. I typically hate puzzle platformers but I’ve been assured they aren’t too bad.
I’m curious what you’ll think of them. They’re not too platform heavy at all, more puzzle based but even then the puzzles aren’t too complicated. The main appeal (at least for me) is the environments, which are top tier imo. The vibes are immaculate, as they say. Genuinely I’d consider Inside to be my all time favourite environmental game, though I can see some people disagreeing with that for sure. It tickles me in exactly the way I love. Limbo is also fantastic and a top five for sure. They’re creepy and eerie but not scary or horror, which is my niche 100%. Not a lot of games have an environment like that, and Inside is the only game I’ve ever found to give me that specific feeling. I’ve been looking for years to recreate it, but alas I’m stuck with replaying it over and over again.
Still Antimatter Dimensions, though not paying too much attention to it. I pop in and out of Baba Is You after solving (or failing to solve) a few levels. Still not sure how to break Baba and Keke out of jail.
I’m stuck on that level of Baba is You as well. I’ll inevitably come back and hit my head against the wall on it every few weeks.
Hope Baba is Hint helps you. I did not get it with these hints, but maybe you will.
