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Weekly Recommendations Thread: What are you playing this week?

Also, I’m playing around with what day of the week to post this, and seeing what days get the best interaction. If you have a preference, please let me know!

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  • Started playing Daggerfall again. It's a fresh start, my second... I wanted to call it attempt but I don't think that's the right word considering I never intended to finish the game - I treat it more as a world to live in rather than something to complete.

    I like it even more this time as I started to lean even more into "just immerse yourself and act as part of this world" approach since my first playthrough. Playing it again also made me really wish there was a modernized version of this concept - here's hoping The Wayward Realms turns out decent... or just releases in general.

    • I tried playing Daggerfall a couple years ago but couldn’t get into it. Maybe I should try your method

      • It can be difficult to get into if you approach it like a modern TES title, that's for sure. It lacks a lot of quality of life features or unique content compared to the sequels, requiring more imagination and active engagement to make your own fun. That said, if you can overcome these issues it can be a pretty immersive experience. Also, while it's not as popular as Skyrim, there are a few quest mods available to make things more interesting when you feel the repetition starts kicking in.

        I don't expect to finish the main story nor do I plan to play it every single day for months. It'll most likely become a game I come back to every few months, when I want to jump back into the medieval life of my current character and play until I get bored again.

    • I'm hoping that The Wayward Realms is decent as well, I did end up backing it. (Sorry patient gamers!) I don't have high hopes for The Elder Scrolls 6 if/when it comes out, so hopefully they can take up the mantle of the earlier games.

      • Thank's for that! I didn't know about the project during the Kickstarter phase and at this point I might as well wait and see how the early access turns out (my PC is already on its last legs and it's made with UE5 which has its issues).

        I don't really have any expectations towards TES6 to be honest - not because it will be bad (I'm sure there will be plenty of people happy with the game) but simply because each sequel moves further away from what I find interesting (less of a "living world" and more of a "theme-park"). Best I can do for now is to play Daggerfall and work on my own small project which will hopefully fulfill some of my needs.

  • Started Pathfinder: Kingmaker and I got sucked into it big time. Just finished the prologue last night. Reviews for this were not great, so I don't know if the game improved dramatically after release or if there are rough spots in the campaign coming up.

    I guess it's also possible its old-school feel contributed to some of that. I really do feel like I'm playing a fresher version of Baldur's Gate 2, complete with unfortunate quirks.

    • This one came out, I want to say, around the time of Pillars of Eternity, Divinity Original Sin, Tyranny, Wasteland 2.

      Which were all a similar style like that, but Pathfinder was the only one that didn’t get a positive reception. I remember clearly wondering “What does this one do wrong?”

      • Only ones of those I tried were Pillars and Divinity (and its sequel). I found Pillars rather obtuse early on so I didn't stick with it very long. I liked how fresh Divinity felt, having its own ruleset that was still simple to understand. Didn't like how super strict the level differential was and the quantity of traps in the game was beyond sadistic. In hindsight, I don't think that one was very good overall.

        On the other hand, I thought D:OS 2 was incredible. It was still way more strict on XP than I'd like, but that's the only thing I would have changed about the game. Looks like it came out just before Kingmaker did, so I'm not surprised it got buried. Larian's just on another level, and Baldur's Gate 3 ended up fixing that one issue I had (while elevating almost everything else at the same time).

        I still am enjoying Kingmaker so much, though. Probably would have blown my mind if I'd played it before BG3, heh. Hoping for a little bit more character writing, but in any case, I'm really enjoying the battles.

  • Just got a steam deck, first thing I started was animal crossing new horizons (which I got from a very legal source)

  • I just finished SOMA. If you're into scary games, just get it in the next sale and go in blind. Don't read anything about it. It's great!

    • I’ve had that game recommended to me before. I have zero idea what it’s about. I might try it after reading your comment

  • I finally started the Metroid series (playing countless hours Metroid Prime Hunters online does not count) with Metroid Zero Mission in my Anbernic RG351v, after getting the 700 blue thingies in Rayman Legends I had a very good session yesterday.

  • Orc Must Die 3. Now i've finished the main campaign and moving on to the second one, is there any other game similar to this? Dungeon Defender is so slow.

  • Still playing through 2016 Doom. In my defense, this hasn't been a great year for carving out time for gaming. I realized a couple days ago that I hadn't even played anything in over a week (Dec 30th was the last day I'd played a game). Sad times being an adult with responsibilities.

    Anyway, I'm hoping I finish the game soon. I don't know if it qualifies as "patient gaming", but I bought the Castlevania Dominus collection in 2024, which is the PC/Steam collection of DS Metroidvania Castlevania games. I played these games on the DS back in the day, still have them and my old DS, but I'm looking forward to playing them again. I mostly game on the Steam Deck these days and I think these games are a good fit for that hardware. They're all really fun games that I look back on fondly, so here's hoping I can get started on at least one of them in the next few weeks or so before my gaming season comes to an end.

    • I feel you, man, being an adult can suck sometimes. It gets really busy, especially if you have additional responsibilities (partner, pets, kids). Not saying that’s a bad thing, I wouldn’t change anything and am happy with my additional responsibilities, but it does definitely limit the free time

56 comments