Starfield was just making me want a better space game so I reinstalled Elite and am getting back into it. I had bought Horizons and Odyssey as they came out, but I haven’t really sat down and played since about a year after Power Play released. The game is so so vastly different now, it’s like an entirely new one.
I’m doing exobiology for some capital and then I wanna go do stuff with thargoids. I wanna befriend an alien.
I would characterize the crust as more colony sim than RTS. It’s definitely rough around the edges, but it has a strong foundation and I expect it will be a great game when finished.
Spelunky 2 - $20. One of my all time favorites here. Over 200 hours in, don’t regret any of them. I could easily double my playtime without seeing everything.
Dark Souls 1 - $30(?). Back in my teen years on the 360 I bought Dark Souls without knowing anything about it. I played through it with a buddy, passing the controller on death, and we had a blast. That first run transcends money for me, I would pay anything to keep that memory. Recently that same buddy and I replayed the game together and are now reworking our way through the series.
Racingmaybe - $3. This game is amazing. It’s a turn based drag racing game with an upgrade system. This is the best driving game I have ever played, far and away. It’s a hobby project by a solo developer. At it’s $3 price point this game is well worth the money. Seriously, if you’re reading this, buy it. Or drop your Steam name and I will gift it to you.
Mount & Blade: Warband - $20. This game is really starting to show its age but I still love it. Endless mod potential gives it tons of replayability.
I could go on forever but these ones came to mind first.
I bought Dragon Age: Origins on the recent GOG sale, and after spending a week or so assembling mods, setting up a load order and creating and fine-tuning a ReShade preset finally got to start playing it.
I’ve only done the prelude so far, but I’m really enjoying it. I’m hoping this series can keep me busy until some more content patches are released for BG3 for a second playthrough. It’s definitely scratching the same itch right now, with the added benefit of being unfamiliar to me. I’m actually quite impressed at how it holds up, though the difference in voice acting quality is definitely noticeable.
What controller are you using? The right stick controlled my camera just fine with a dual shock 4 in windows and on my steam deck. Control issues aside, if you aren’t a fan of racing games, this game isn’t going to change that but the demo has me very excited for the full release.
I was using an 8bitdo Ultimate Bluetooth controller on PC. I don’t know why the right stick didn’t control the camera, if it is supposed to actually work correctly. I guess I must have pressed the wrong button or something. Guess I’ll never know now 🤷
I understand you have a lot of demos to cover, though I can’t help but feel there’s some dishonesty about the Robocop demo. First mission gets you used to killing gangsters in simple corridors, though after that the demo actually gives a lot of focus on side quests, and very traditional “community policing”, including detective work, and many occasions of trying to find the best balance between community lenience and upholding justice. I even managed to avoid a gunfight in one case by finding clues and negotiating some of the gangsters down.
Maybe you played all that part and it just didn’t feel significant. I admit, it just felt pleasantly unexpected to me.
The demo really was an excellent content warning in itself. I hope that’s the actual opening- that way people who buy it and don’t know what they’re getting into can find out real quick, and get their return.
See. It’s easier to use but of an axe to hammer the nails rather than to use the handle of saw to hammer the nails. Both have advantages and disadvantages.
Most of your write ups seem decently done if you clicked with the game at all, but if you’re going to continue to review things, you might want to do reign in your personal biases a bit.
Low scores for games you didn’t play or realize you don’t understand the appeal of are pretty bad takes.
Vampire Survivors was quite literally one of the hit games of the year when it came out, to call other games of the genre that are following on its coattails “not really a game” and saying people shouldn’t buy a literal genre is just ridiculous. Is FatalZone trying to be some huge blockbuster, no, it’s just iterating on the survivor concept (same as Deep Rock Galactic is doing, which has more polish but less features than most). The game is literally $5 to buy right now in early access and as one of the many who do enjoy the genre, it’s probably worth the price with the content it has now (unknown if it’ll be same insane value VS has been).
Isn't that exactly what lead us to the "every AAA game is an 8/10" meta of current videogame reviewing? I think it's totally valid to make subjective game reviews. Big outlets trying to make their reviews objectives is IMHO the reason why they are totally worthless (for me).
Everyone has a bias and that’s expected and the stating of opinions as opinions is good, the line is stating opinion as fact or review bombing.
I didn’t play it because I didn’t want to log in, isn’t a review of the actual game, it’s at best review bombing against secondary logins. It tells anyone interested in playing the game nothing other than that a secondary login is needed.
The definition of the minimum criteria for what makes a game is pretty nebulous, but survivor styles are well above all but the most disingenuous definitions of what makes a game. Saying it isn’t a game because you don’t enjoy it is not having a bias that causes you to like something less.
The trending of most games to be 7+/10 is largely driven by idiots who tied the success of a game to metacritic scores and publishers who retaliate against games journalists for “hurting” that success by not cooperating with them on future products by providing review codes.
the line is stating opinion as fact
I totally understand what you mean and I usually don't like it either but I think this post is easily recognized as an highly subjective opinion. So I'm fine with the way it's written and wouldn't take it as a fact.
review bombing
This is definitely not what review bombing even means (yes, that's a fact).
People should have spicy takes. I love when someone goes, “I don’t like Dark Souls because it’s too hard.” Or “Not a fan of gore so Doom isn’t for me”. It tells me more about the writer and seeing their perspective.
There’s enough annoying fanboys out there. If I wanted a tamed review, Ill go read some gaming blog thats too afraid to piss off their advertisers.
“I don’t like X game/genre” is a fine take, calling something you don’t like “not really a game" is not, unless you can really justify it not meeting some minimum criteria to be called a game (doesn’t present a challenge or problem to overcome, doesn’t have a fail-state, has no player agency, etc)
I don’t even know where to begin on the question of “reining in my personal bias”, other than to note all reviews are based on a person’s personal bias, and what they know about the gaming format and industry as a whole. I know it’s a tired trope, but everyone has personal bias, and game/game demo reviews should not try to be objective looks at games (it’s near useless). Reviewers should instead make their experience and opinions known from the start, or throughout the review. That way if their opinions are diametrically opposed, readers who don’t share the same opinions can readily discount it.
Also, while you can empathize with and realize that someone might like a game if they’re into that genre, you can only go so far. I have not played Vampire Survivors, but if it’s anything like FatalZone, I will gleefully state it’s not really a game. Or if I want to be less glib, not really a game I’d recommend for others. Again, for you this might be a good cue to discard my reviews as worthless for you. You should make your own reviews in this subreddit in that case, as it could certainly use more posts.
Sidenote: Pioneers of Pagonia is by the actual developer of the actual old The Settlers.
I loved it. And yeah, it’s a simple management game without much depth or fuss, but that chill easygoing settling of the landscape is what enchanted me about the original right around 30 years ago, and it worked just as well with the demo. In fact I found that comparing Against The Storm, I kinda prefer the less gameplay that PoP has, exactly because it has less gameplay. ATS sits a bit in the middle, still being a chill town builder but also wanting to be deeper, and in that case I just want a proper 4X or Grand Strategy game instead. PoP is then the exact opposite of that for me, it appeals to the chill&relax part of gaming, a bit like playing Dorfromantik or something.
I’m a bit in a not-yet-released slump. “Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous” gets a new DLC in late November, so not playing that until then. The same company releases their new game “Warhammer 40k: Rogue Trader” in December, so I’m not playing the Beta until then. “Vagrus - The Riven Realm” gets a new DLC some time this year, so also waiting there. “Colony Ship” gets out of EA and releases November 9, so obviously not playing EA either.
I had enough of BG3 for now (finished it only twice, it’s not as captivating as the Pathfinder games) and will only eventually replay it with one of those “make it like actual D&D5” modpacks. Regarding D&D5, I should some time check if there are updated fan campaigns for Solasta that use the higher DLC level cap :D
I did plan to replay Wasteland 2, but that will take quite some time, and as I mentioned, upcoming releases.
So after telling you what I have not been playing, what I currently do play is alternate between my typical fallback games: Stellaris (a game I never once finished despite 1080h of time played) and Civ V with the amazing and mandatory Vox Populi mod.
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