The Forever Winter. Released in early access due to popular demand. It’s rough, divisive, and difficult as hell. It’s also incredibly grim and hauntingly beautiful. It’s a PvE-only, stealth-based, extraction (non-)shooter where you scavenge resources to survive in the shadow of a military-industrial complex run absolutely amok. You are incredibly underpowered, outnumbered and outgunned, to the point where if you need to start shooting, you’re probably already dead. Gameplay is tense, frightening, and really drives home the overwhelming feeling of being a small fish in a really fucking big pond. It’s the opposite of a power fantasy and I’m really glad someone is doing something that different.

I’m not sure I’d recommend it in the state it’s in, if at all, but it’s definitely making me feel some kind of way. I don’t normally enjoy extraction shooters, but I find myself coming back to this one. Not that it’s really a shooter. Maybe that’s what’s doing it for me. The most divisive part is the water mechanic. It’s a key resource for your settlement; If you run out of water you lose all your stuff. But, it drains in real time not game time so it’s kind of a big commitment at the moment. Personally I understand both sides of the argument and I haven’t decided where I fall yet. It’s definitely worked on me because I find myself thinking about the game when I’m not playing, but if I end up taking a break I’m not sure I’ll have the commitment to build back up from scratch again.

Started Horizon Zero Dawn. I usually don’t like open world games, but this one has an interesting setting and the gameplay seems fun, so I’m giving it a try.

Finally finished Trails of Cold Steel which was meh. It felt needlessly padded (it could have been shortened to like 30 hours instead of 60 IMO) and there were too many uninteresting characters (I actually can’t think of an interesting one). Hopefully the following games are better, as now the setting should be more interesting.

Got back into Yooka Laylee after a fairly long hiatus. Still on the first 2 levels because of the high amount of exploration and things to do, so I’m not far at all, but definitely having fun.

I finished Doom II and some levels were an absolute pain. I gotta say though, this re-release (Doom + Doom II) is a bit disappointing. There are a bunch of glitches, although pretty minor, that are just annoying. The most frustrating one for me was, when you have the Pistol Start option activated (to automatically start all levels with just the Pistol), the Backpack is bugged and doesn’t give double ammo capacity. Once you die and restart the level it’s fixed, until the next level. I don’t know if it ever made the difference with me dying or not, but it just sucks.

Today I started Final Doom, specifically TNT:Evilution, which I’ve never played before. Just like before I’m trying UV, Pistol Start, no mid-level saves, but depending on how it goes I might start using saves. I’ll probably try a different source port though, since this KEX engine port isn’t the best.

I also played through Horizon Forbidden West: The Burning Shores DLC, although only the main quests and almost nothing else. It was kinda meh. The story was fine, but the final boss fight was complete garbage. The romance part also felt really rushed, especially since I went through everything over just two days/seven hours in total.

Then, I’m also kinda in-between games right now, since I’m waiting for the Diablo 4 expansion release in a bit over a week. There are a bunch of games I want to play, but probably won’t finish in time, so they have to wait. I tried Ace Combat 7, played through the first mission, but it didn’t really grab me (KB+M is definitely more playable than the Steam forums made it seem). I’ll probably play through one of the dozens of metroidvanias I bought, but never played.

I have been playing Evoland Legendary Edition. The 2 games bundled are surprisingly dissimilar, with the first being almost a parody game of extremely short length, and the second being a fairly fleshed-out, 20 hour RPG-lite, with a story of real stakes (highly inspired by Chrono Trigger).

Very worth it if picked up on sale, just be prepared for the tone-whiplash between games.

Lots of Skyrim!
Also this game for Playdate called Spilled Mushrooms, I’d been waiting for it to come out a while. It’s a nice blend of simple card game and puzzle, each round only takes a few minutes. The goal is to pick animals to help collect your mushrooms from different areas, animals have different abilities and each biome can have modifiers, pretty much endlessly replayable and very satisfying once you get into a groove! I’m glad it’s not on more platforms because I’d lose so much more time to it

Late to the party, but I finally picked up Helldivers 2. My friends have had it since it came out, but I was being the “hipster gamer” and didn’t get the popular game. Plus, our group has a tendency to do “flavor of the week”/FOMO gaming, where 1 or 2 people buy a new game, convince/guilt trip others into buying the game, we all spend $30-50 on it, play it for like 2 days, then never touch it again. So I was hesitant to get it, lest I get burned again (a la Starfield). Lastly, I’m also not a huge shooter player.

But I wanted to played with the boys, and they were playing it again recently, so I picked it up. And I’m glad I did. Because it’s fun. Stupid fun even. Which is right up our alley. Already put 20hrs in over the last week.

The mechanics are simple. The missions are straightforward. And I like that it’s a pickup/putdown game. Play a 20-40min round, then come back later or tomorrow. It’s not like we’re playing hours on end, which is great. We’ll play a match or two, then maybe do another before we start signing-off for the night.

Working on a last hurrah for Diablo 4: Season 5, just finishing up max leveling glyphs for my Scorcerer before I completely set it aside for next season.

Right when I was getting bored playing Sims 3 in my current save, my eldest… disappears. I mean, I saw her die, the Grim Reaper showed up and got her, but that means nothing to this buggy mess of a game. She left no tombstone or anything. So, my current save now is now at four generations, due to an adoption. But, I’m at a point where I want to play other stuff, so this game’s going back on the shelf for a while until I need another reset.

Finished Amnesia: The Bunker and managed to get a couple achievements out of it. I might do some serious achievement hunting, but I also kind of want to play a new game, so we’ll see how this week goes.

Elden Ring - Shadow of the Erdtree

I’m 160 hours in, completed the base game, and now am on what I believe to be the final boss of the DLC. I got to phase 2 on the first try, only to hit a brick wall lol.

The DLC is a lot bigger than I was expecting, and some of the bosses are the most difficult I’ve faced. The highlight for me has been Cerulean Coast and

Looking forward to NG+ and beyond as I work towards the 100% achievement - speaking of which, it’s a little disappointing how little is required to get it compared to DS1/2/3, especially since ER is so much bigger of a game. I really enjoyed hunting down all the rings for DS3 and felt they could have had a talisman achievement to match in ER.

My favourite moment of the past week was when I summoned two players for a certain boss (another phase 2 kicking my ass), but we got invaded by “Jesus” who just kinda lore-walked around and gestured, and eventually we followed along. Nobody got hurt, and they even gave some gestures of encouragement for us to go beat the boss.

Ilamentia

Very weird indie puzzle/platformer. It feels like a fever dream. You have a FPS view and (some of the time) a set of hands that shoot projectiles (reminds me of Gauntlets of the Necromancer from Heretic), except they don’t necessarily do damage, they interact with the puzzles in each world.

There are some abstract hints for each level, but I find myself really having to think about what’s in front of me to solve the puzzles (in a good way). I noticed a negative review complaining about the game mechanics not being consistent, but I think that is completely intentional and serves the overall feel of the game nicely. It’s not meant to be obvious or easy, you have to figure it out. I don’t think this is a game for everyone, but I am enjoying it for what it is. Apparently there are 96 levels so I’m more than getting my money’s worth.

Bleak Sword DX

Action/roguelike/soulslike? Each world is broken into about 10 levels + boss fights, and from what I can tell there are about 10 worlds. I’m enjoying the feel of the gameplay a lot - blocking and dodging are satisfying like a souls game. The difficulty is starting to ramp up as I work to finish world 3. Surprised I hadn’t heard of this sooner. Probably a good one for Hollow Knight fans, but there isn’t exploration. It’s bite-sized action and it’s done well imo.

Noita

What a game. Alchemy, wand-building, every single pixel is trying to kill you. Especially the water which is also on fire. It’s amazing and highly addictive. I have no idea how large the world actually is yet, since I’ve been busy discovering new ways to blow myself up. Pretty much every run I see something new. This will easily get 100+ hours out of me.

Lorn’s Lure - This game absolutely enthralled me over the past 2 weeks. It’s a parkour/exploration game, one developer, and it’s just so well designed. Punches way over it’s price for $15.

The maps are these enormous sprawling runes of an ancient machine, and there so much to find and see in each level. Then after beating the game you can go back with all upgrades and there are so many new paths, new secrets. There’s this special feeling when a developer adds so much in just for their love of the game. Things that don’t unlock new content, don’t satisfy any goals, just more fun and interesting stuff to look at and play around in, if you want. Then you get to the last level and it’s such an emotional peak. It’s like the dev spent 7 chapters just teaching us, preparing the player for the final level, and then doesn’t hold anything back.

AND it relates to both Hatch and Kill the K.O.T.H., Hatch specifically could be a lesson in pacing, I recommend that as well for anyone interested.

Echoes of Wisdom

Making my way through Like a dragon: Infinite wealth Loving it so far, and think this might actually be the first Yakuza/LAD game I finish, always got distracted in the past.

Started and finished 1000xResist over the course of a few days. In general I often find myself turned off by games with aging graphics, not for any good reason but more that I just find less of a pull towards them. I have more trouble being engaged or immersed, unless there’s a really strong art focus. This is one such game that I was worried I wouldn’t get pulled into, and in fact one that sat on a list of “maybe I’ll pick it up” because it was so highly reviewed but I was worried about that facet. It did not take very long for the game to grip me, however, because of it’s excellent storytelling. In fact, the game is almost entirely about storytelling, so there’s not a ton that I can share other than to say that it deals with a lot of difficult themes like intense trauma, bullying, having a tough childhood, extreme ideologies, and the long term effects of violence. It also deals with more societal and human issues like protests, fascism, extreme duress, how self-interested and powerful individuals can cause serious problems and inflict violence, being optimistic or nihilistic in the face of overwhelming odds, and the threat of extinction.

While it isn’t a very long game, consisting of maybe a dozen hours of gameplay, I found myself putting it down for a while after certain chapters in order to process what just happened. The story throws a lot of curveballs and reveals information that can easily change the way you frame entire chapters of the story from earlier, but it never feels like it’s done in a way that inspires whiplash - nothing ever feels like a ‘sudden’ realization and I’m honestly not sure how much of it can be attributed to such a difficult story (if everything is fucked, what’s one more thing?) and how much is because they do a masterful job at slowly unraveling the enigma of the story that very few pieces of information ever really feel out of place. There’s unfortunately only so much I can write without spoiling the story, but I will say that it was one of the best stories I’ve heard or played through and I’d thoroughly recommend it to anyone who likes a good story or wants to explore the themes I’ve mentioned above. Also, if anyone else out there played through this, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the story… what did you think? Do you have any lingering questions left over? Were there parts of the story that irked you or that you found particularly moving?

Finished Limbo after it was sitting in my library for years and it was really emjoyable. I did not expect to like it as much as I did but the puzzles were all completely doable (

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Also played through Mouthwashing and was pleasantly disturbed. The lasst 20 minutes get a bit long in the teeth but overall a great experience.

Darkwood and Disco Elysium, as games recommended by friends. Darkwood scares the crap out of me, maybe because I’m more alert to sounds in general. Disco Elysium is very interesting, but a tad slow, and not as engaging as other games.

Most of ny playtime now is Dark Souls 3. I only played 1 and 2 before, and this is about what I expected, more, slightly better and different Dark Souls. I’ll probably replay it more than DS 2, but that depends, because I might prefer 2’s less linear progression.

Also, still grinding supports I want to see (which is a lot) in Fire Emblem Revelations on bus rides.