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!
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.
Playing the Phantasy Star games for the SMS and the Genesis. I lost my save after getting Noah though and I am big sad. Maybe my friends the affluent Fishmen will help me grind through a bit quicker this time now that I know how great they are for mesetas and xp early on...
I started playing one of these on the Wii many, many years ago. I think it was the original. It was a lot of fun. I don't think I beat it, nor was I heavily invested enough to remember names and strategies, but it was cool to play an RPG that I didn't get to play when it originally came out.
I know this was written in English, but…
heh, lemme translate. I lost my save file, so I'm starting over with the key knowledge that fishmen encounters are an effective way to build back up the resources I lost.
I've been playing a bunch of shorter games, such as:
And I'm still playing a few games while my kids watch.
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've been playing some American and Euro Truck Simulator recently, and I played a little bit of Elder Scrolls Online. I really hope that when ESO inevitably ends there is a way to play it offline. I basically play it as a single player game, and it would be sad to lose all of those quests!
re Truck Sim, do you play keyboard and mouse or with a wheel +/ pedals?
Wheel + pedals when I'm using my main rig, and controller when I'm playing on my Steam Deck or one of my laptops.
I agree on the ESO point - I probably only have 20-30 hours in it but it’s been exclusively as single player as I could do. It is a fun game, I quite enjoy it. I should open it again soon
I tend to dip in and out here and there, it's pretty fun when I'm in the mood for it. There's definitely a load of singleplayer content! I wish there was less filler, but that's what comes with the type of game.
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.
I got a Steamdeck in November. Is Sufi considered patient? If not, I restarted Witcher III again.
I relapsed and started playing league of legends again
Get well soon. Praying for you 🙏
brogue, not very good at it and not that interested in reading spoilers to learn.
Good luck! All my rogue likes/lites are "I will now die fifty billion times ooooo I win! Once! Woo!"
Thanks, to be honest angband was pretty easy as long as you have an understanding of how to play rl. Brogue has some similarity in this with nethack, you need to know and remember things from previous games, which is hard for me. 😅
Infra Arcana was the brutal one due to a lot of clever machines on levels and sanity management and it's pretty unforgiving in general.
I don't think I've beaten any other completely.
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.
I just finished Ys 2 (in the Ys Chronicles version) and going to move on Ys -The Oath In Felghana soon.
The only Ys have I played when I was young was Ys 3 -Wanderers From Ys, and I loved it, so it will be cool to see what Oath changes up.
Tale of Two Wastelands. It’s a pretty cool mod that essentially combines Fallout 3 and New Vegas into one game and allows you to travel between both areas the games take place in. It also slightly modernises Fallout 3’s gameplay which makes it wayyy more enjoyable. Would highly recommend if you own 3 and New Vegas
That sounds awesome. Definitely gonna check it out
Playing some smaller, chill games: The Unfinished Swan and Sludge Life.
I broke the patience protocol and grabbed Pantheon in early access. $40 in leu of ~2 years of monthly subs seemed like a bargain.
How is it? Been waiting for this game for years
Enjoying it. Very much captures the early EQ vibe.
Exploring and checking out what’s around a corner and considering every mob to not get stomped.
Running around a city interacting and looking for quests.
Drive by buffs or strangers messaging you to give hand me downs.
Finding a group isn’t instant - so have some side projects to work on like crafting or questing. Or take initiative and start messaging strangers to start one.
Mostly Celeste and Yonder TCCC. There‘s a fine line between cozy and boring, and Yonder‘s dangerously close to the latter.
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
Factorio: Space Age
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.