August 2023 Random Game Thoughts Thread

August Sale Dates:

Steam: Visual Novel Fest: August 7 - August 14, Strategy Fest: August 28 - September 4
Epic: Summer Sale: Now - August 3
GoG: No info available

Coming to Game Pass in August:

  • Celeste - August 1
  • A Short Hike - August 3
  • Broforce Forever - August 8
  • Limbo - August 9
  • Airborne Kingdom - August 10
  • Everspace 2 - August 15
If you don't like those, they'll make up for it in September with Starfield.

Top Game Launches for August (From PC Gamer):

  • August 3 — Baldur's Gate 3 - Larian's take on the classic RPG series (Steam)
  • August 4Super Space Club - Colorful arcade space shooter (Steam)
  • August 8 — I Am Future(Early Access) - Ruined rooftop base-builder (Steam)
  • August 8 — WrestleQuest - 80's pro wrestling meets retro-styled RPG (Steam)
  • August 9 — 30XX - Megaman X roguelike overhaul (Steam)
  • August 10 — Atlas Fallen - Monster Hunter meets righteous deicide (Steam)
  • August 10 — Banchou Tactics - High school delinquent tactics RPG (Steam)
  • August 10 — Lifeless Moon - Sci-fi adventure (Steam)
  • August 10 — Sengoku Dynasty(Early Access) - feudal Japan survival (Steam)
  • August 10 — Stray Gods - RPG musical about modern Greek gods (Steam)
  • August 10 — Tales & Tactics - Roguelike by Slay the Spire modders (Steam)
  • August 15 — Hammerwatch 2 - Open world hack-and-slash sequel (Steam)
  • August 15 — Moving Out 2 - Packing party game sequel (Steam)
  • August 16 — En Garde - Comedy sword fighting (Steam)
  • August 17 — Book of Hours - Combat-free occult librarian RPG (Steam)
  • August 17Gord - Dark fantasy settlement builder (Steam)
  • August 17 — Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew - Tactics, ahoy (Steam)
  • August 18 — Bomb Rush Cyberfunk - Jet Set Successor (Steam)
  • August 21 — Jumplight Odyssey(Early Access) - FTL meets Rimworld (Steam)
  • August 21 — Six Ages 2: Lights Going Out - Clan survival sim (Steam)
  • August 21 — Whisker Squadron: Survivor - Star Fox-style roguelite (Steam)
  • August 22 — Fort Solis - Mars scifi thriller story (Steam)
  • August 22 — Immortals of Aveum - EA-published magic FPS (Steam)
  • August 24 — Blasphemous 2 - Brutal Metroidvania sequel (Steam)
  • August 25 — Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon - From's robot return (Steam)
  • August 29 — Daymare: 1994 Sandcastle - Third-person horror (Steam)
  • August 29 — Sea of Stars - Classic-style turn-based RPG (Steam)
  • August 29 — Under the Waves - Subaquatic psychological story (Steam)
  • August 31Trine 5: A Clockwork Conspiracy - fantasy puzzler (Steam)

Additional August Releases Perhaps of Interest:​

Major DLC Releasing in August:


Notable Games Coming to Early Access in August:​


Demos Releasing in August:a​

Most demos don't advertise a release date, so this list will be very incomplete:

 
Do you ever watch an amateur (like a games journalist or game dev) play and think, "What the heck are they shooting at?" I've watched both a journalist and a game dev (I'm making light of them, so I'm not saying their names) recently play shooters, and if they hit the enemy 50 percent of the time, I'd be shocked. Do a lot of people play like that? Just firing away like crazy hoping to hit something?

Edited to say the journalist was a games journalist and corrected my typo in "game".
 
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Firstly thank you so much Zed for doing these monthly posts. I’m sure all regular posters on this forum greatly appreciate your work.

This month is jam packed with cool releases. I’m very interested in Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, Sea of Stars, Fort Solis, Immortals of Aveum and Armored Core 6. Baldur’s Gate 3 looks amazing but I have no idea if I have the strength to actually play through it.

I’m mostly interested in Fort Solis because the voice actor of Arthur Morgan is in it haha, I’m glad to see him get more big roles. I’ve never played an Armored Core game, but I’m sure it will be great as I’ve become a fan of From Soft because of the Souls games. The graphics on Sea or Stars is seriously impressive, truly pushing the boundaries of what pixel graphics can do.

In effort to save my wallet from imploding on itself, I got a month of Ubisoft+ for $1. They’re doing a promotion even for customers who have had it before, and I was able to immediately turn off auto-pay right after I purchased the deal so I don’t have to worry about $15 being drafted out of my account in a month. I suppose this will be the month of Ubisoft games for me. Reading @Brian Boru ‘s posts about Far Cry 6 made me want to give it another shot and I’m enjoying it more than I did the first time around. The graphics are gorgeous and the setting is perfect for a Far Cry game. Can’t wait to play it more tonight.
 

Zloth

Community Contributor
How did a game like Wrestlequest get permission to use all those wrestlers!?!?

If I'm playing a shooter, I'm not thinking "I need to press W to go forward, now I need to move the mouse this way about that far, now I need to press the left mouse button...." Somebody without some history in gaming, though, does have to think just like that. How long did you watch? It'd be interesting to see how long it took to get used to the controls.
 
How did a game like Wrestlequest get permission to use all those wrestlers!?!?

If I'm playing a shooter, I'm not thinking "I need to press W to go forward, now I need to move the mouse this way about that far, now I need to press the left mouse button...." Somebody without some history in gaming, though, does have to think just like that. How long did you watch? It'd be interesting to see how long it took to get used to the controls.
For a games journalist and a game developer? They know the controls already. Hell, the game developer essentially invented the whole thing and was playing the game he became famous for.
 
High school delinquent tactics RPG
Someone remind me please—how do you play that again?

RPG musical
A what?

Do a lot of people play like that? Just firing away like crazy hoping to hit something?
I see that a lot too, it's the essence of spray n pray or run n gun, isn't it? Suits play with machine guns & machine pistols, both set on full auto. Ideal for adrenalin chasers and 'blow stuff up' play—it's all good :)

It's opposite of how I like to play. I roleplay a bit, as in 'What would I do in this situation in real life', so planning, sneaking, guns set on single shot with a little extra time taken to get the headshot even if nearby—or just blast away with the rapid-fire shotgun when dogpiled :D
 
Thanks Zed, mighty post as always.

BOOK OF HOURS looks maybe interesting, and you gave me a few demos to try:
Word Factori Demo
Noun Town Language Learning Demo
A Guidebook Of Babel Demo
Yeah, throw words or books in front of me and you have my attention :)

Nothing else for me in the releases, so I just hope Baldurs Gate 3 releases in good condition for the forum RPG Overlords :D
 
Thanks Zed, mighty post as always.

BOOK OF HOURS looks maybe interesting, and you gave me a few demos to try:
Word Factori Demo
Noun Town Language Learning Demo
A Guidebook Of Babel Demo
Yeah, throw words or books in front of me and you have my attention :)

Nothing else for me in the releases, so I just hope Baldurs Gate 3 releases in good condition for the forum RPG Overlords :D
I need something long and engrossing (and probably painful), so I'm likely going to get Balder's Gate 3, too. Not sure I'm going to get it exactly on release, though. Technically, I've shot my gaming budget for awhile.

The problem is that if it's as long as advertised, I won't finish it before Starfield. Heck, apparently it takes days just to watch the cutscenes.

If you give me your email, I'll record all the cutscenes and send them to you.
 
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If you give me your email, I'll record all the cutscenes and send them to you
colif@pcgamer.com
That will probably get us a transcript of all the cutscene dialog too, with insightful commentary!

I won't finish it before Starfield
As I said to Mainer earlier, that's a probable good thing, give Starfield time for the significant fixes which are likely to be needed.
 
colif@pcgamer.com
That will probably get us a transcript of all the cutscene dialog too, with insightful commentary!


As I said to Mainer earlier, that's a probable good thing, give Starfield time for the significant fixes which are likely to be needed.
I enjoy being a part of launch day for big games, and given they've been in QA with the entire Xbox team for months, I would be surprised if the game needs significant fixes.
 
*tips hat to Zed*. BG3 for me because I know it will be one hell of a ride. Then maybe Starfield in September if they manage to deliver.
Do you ever watch an amateur (like a games journalist or game dev) play and think, "What the heck are they shooting at?" I've watched both a journalist and a game dev (I'm making light of them, so I'm not saying their names) recently play shooters, and if they hit the enemy 50 percent of the time, I'd be shocked. Do a lot of people play like that? Just firing away like crazy hoping to hit something?

Edited to say the journalist was a games journalist and corrected my typo in "game".
It's kind of weird to see but at least it beats those god-awful gameplay videos with scripted commentary. I think some people just don't play much video games at all or just naturally suck at it. It has to do with their genes I believe. They got the "I'll just cross my eyes and spray" genes instead of the "I'll just crouch slide around this corner while prefiring my gun and killing that bambi" genes.

I also blame mobile phones and I think that both old and young people who play games on them slowly get worse at video games on PC. It's because of the small screen and them seeing more narrowly to the point of them not being able to look at a monitor screen and actually spot stuff.
 
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Do you ever watch an amateur (like a games journalist or game dev) play and think, "What the heck are they shooting at?" I've watched both a journalist and a game dev (I'm making light of them, so I'm not saying their names) recently play shooters, and if they hit the enemy 50 percent of the time, I'd be shocked. Do a lot of people play like that? Just firing away like crazy hoping to hit something?

Edited to say the journalist was a games journalist and corrected my typo in "game".

I play like that. It's why I prefer shooters where enemies don't move around too much, since I won't be able to hit them otherwise. Cover shooters are generally perfect because I can just wait until the enemy peeks their head out.

It's why I gave up carrying a hunting rifle in Fallout 4: I kept missing because enemies run around too much and the time between shots is too long to afford making mistakes, especially three times in a row.

I also use V.A.T.S. a lot, both for spotting enemies I hadn't noticed myself and for hitting anything that's moving around too much.

Firstly thank you so much Zed for doing these monthly posts. I’m sure all regular posters on this forum greatly appreciate your work.

Indeed, thank you Zed!

This month is jam packed with cool releases.

I had the exact opposite reaction. I didn't see anything particularly interesting.

Baldur's Gate 3 does look interesting, but then again so do Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 and I haven't played those yet either, so I doubt I'll ever get around to playing it. I generally bounce off of party based RPGs. Dragon Age: Origins is the only exception so far, I think.
 
I've been playing more of Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup. The very first character I played was a minotaur fighter who worshipped Trog, which meant that he couldn't use any spells. It was a very straightforward way of playing, but not very interesting.

I've since tried a demonspawn mage, which gets random mutations as it levels, and a djinn, which casts magic using its health instead of mana and gains spells as it levels up instead of learning them from books, with some different deities.

I even downloaded an app that lets me play the game on my phone, though you control the game through a virtual keyboard that has a pretty terrible layout considering which buttons I use most. On my phone I'm playing as a deep elf, which are good at magic but have low health, who specializes in summoning. I also joined the religion of the snail god, which makes me move slower but boosts my attributes. Since my summons do most of the fighting the lack of movement speed doesn't impact me all that much and so far it's been working quite well.
 
Thanks Zed, mighty post as always.

BOOK OF HOURS looks maybe interesting, and you gave me a few demos to try:
Word Factori Demo
Noun Town Language Learning Demo
A Guidebook Of Babel Demo
Yeah, throw words or books in front of me and you have my attention :)

Nothing else for me in the releases, so I just hope Baldurs Gate 3 releases in good condition for the forum RPG Overlords :D
I meant to mention that while I was looking at the "other" releases that I was surprised how many had demos available. Sometimes they get rid of those at release for some strange reason.
 
Started up Deus Ex: Human Revolution - Directors Cut and just finished the first boss. Not the best boss mechanic, I basically had him behind a pole while I peeked left/right and stunned/tranquilized him to death. I'm playing the game while having developer commentary on and it is quite hilarious at times. You'll hear all the small tidbits and the developers even argue from time to time about what really happened. You can feel the nerd factor reaching a high note at times. The game is pretty good, enjoying the stealth/hacking. Tons of nooks and crannies to explore and ways to go about your mission. Also props to the voice actor Elias Toufexis that voices the main protagonist Adam Jensen as he sounds really cool!
 

mainer

Venatus semper
Well, I actually finished the System Shock Remake yesterday. I had serious doubts that I ever would because I almost dropped the game 2 or 3 times out of frustration. But I stuck with it, out of stubbornness I guess, and with the addition of a few mods (especially for cyberspace) I was able to complete it. That and I did watch a few videos for certain parts that were driving me crazy. It's probably the most walkthrough-type videos I've ever watched for a game, as I generally like to figure out things myself. Looks like only a small percentage of players have finished the game so far (16.2 %).
IQZZYPf.png


It is a really good game which stays true to the original, just be aware of the difficulty levels if you play, as they can't be changed once the game starts. I had mission & puzzles set at normal, and combat & cyberspace at easy, and even with combat on easy, I still died a good 20-25 times.

At least I finished in time to start BG3 tomorrow, assuming it doesn't take all day to download 122 GB.
 
To everyone playing Baldur’s Gate 3 tomorrow, I hope it lives up to your expectations and you have fun with it!

My CPU is really starting to show its age. I have a Ryzen 1600X and it’s been the main bottleneck in my gaming performance. Most games I play still consider my RTX 2060 to be good enough, but more and more games are saying the Ryzen 1600X is just too old. In Far Cry 6, I have to play it at medium settings with AMD CSR turned on to Quality. Still even then I get some dips below 60fps.

I’ve been eyeing the Ryzen 5800X due to its price when on sale (it was $160 on Amazon Prime Day, the Ryzen 5600X is still at $180 full price) and because I’m not ready to upgrade to AM5 yet. It seems to be a good pick for my budget build to last a couple more years.

View: https://youtu.be/necwqUV4kcQ


I know this video is a Ryzen 1600 and not 1600X but I’m sure the difference between the two are negligible. The main thing is most games are seeing a 20+ FPS increase, sometimes 40+ FPS with the 5800X vs the 1600. It really goes to show how much of a bottleneck my CPU is right now.
 
On my phone I'm playing as a deep elf, which are good at magic but have low health, who specializes in summoning. I also joined the religion of the snail god, which makes me move slower but boosts my attributes. Since my summons do most of the fighting the lack of movement speed doesn't impact me all that much and so far it's been working quite well.

I continued with this game and it was going splendid. My deity had boosted all my abilities by 15 (pretty much doubling them), giving me plenty of mana to resummon my minions whenever they died, even while fighting multiple enemies.

I ran into some trouble when I encountered some javelin throwing centaurs. Javelins pierce through multiple units, meaning they would hit me regardless of the amount of summons I put between us. Luckily they were stuck behind some deep water, so I could retreat whenever I needed to heal myself and eventually whittled them down. It made me aware of a big weakness in my strategy that I didn't really have an answer to.

Not long after that, I found some sort of labyrinth that ended in a big room full of high level monsters. I actually managed them pretty well, since I could keep my minions in between us while staying in the labyrinth. It got a bit hairy when one managed to show up behind me, but I managed to survive that too. My defensive golem was the real MVP here. It doesn't have any attacks, it just increases the defense of my other minions, but it also has quite a lot of health and explodes when it dies, dealing quite a lot of damage and leaving behind some fires. It bought me a lot of time and did a lot of damage.

I started to get some confidence that I could whittle all these high level monsters down when a deep elf pyromaniac showed up. I'd encountered one before in another game where he was a pain in the butt, but this time was much worse. He has fire resistance, which meant my golem did far less damage. He can shoot fire bolts that pass through units, which meant he could hit me through my summons. But worst of all, he can teleport and summon fire spirits, meaning he ended up surrounding me with enemies, giving me no chance to retreat and recover.

As I'm writing this I do suddenly remember I had a wand of paralysis too. Wands are pretty rare and can only be used a limited number of times, so they're one of those items you save for when you need them and then forget about entirely. With the boost to my attributes I would have probably had a somewhat decent chance of success as well.
 
It could be coincidence, but I've noticed a general big increase in the number of demos around recently. Anyone who plays one, if you can please post a quick summary in our Demos thread :)
This forum has a bunch of people who just read and never post, so it's a good way to get the word out.

Another reason is because having a demo is a good way to get people to wishlist your game. If people don't wishlist you, you don't show up on the front page of Steam when you release your game. If that happens, you may as well not even have bothered.
 

Zloth

Community Contributor
I'm bouncing back and forth between Dark Messiah of Might & Magic and Marvel's Midnight Suns. (So the M's are big this summer for me!) DMM&M when it's hot out, Midnight Suns when it isn't. I don't think I've got all that much further to go in Midnight Suns, though.

There are some annoyances in Midnight Suns that are coming to light in the late game.
  • The exploration game just putters out about halfway through the game. A couple of the mysteries you uncover toward the end aren't mysteries at all - you just cast your 'reveal' power and the reward chest shows up. You're out of new areas to explore by level
  • The whole levelling mechanic is pointless. When a hero gains a level, their offensive stat goes up, so they do more damage, and their hit points increase. The thing is, the enemies scale up, too, so they also do more damage, and their hit points increase. It's not like the scaling in Skyrim, either, when different enemies will pop up as levels go up - it's the same enemies with bigger damage and hit point bars.
  • There are a LOT of heroes. They feel distinctive, which is great, but they fall behind your custom hero quickly. The game makes sure they are never more than three levels behind but, if you're even using half the heroes on offer, the Hunter is going to be three levels higher than everyone else most of the time. That leads to everyone feeling weak compared to your character. (You can counter this by either not bringing your character along for most of the optional missions and/or using the "THREAT" battle simulations to grind up some hero levels.)
I get the feeling that the game had a bunch of content cut short. It's still plenty of fun, it's just sad to see the incomplete spots.

It really goes to show how much of a bottleneck my CPU is right now.
It will depend on the game a lot. If you want to check any particular game, just crank up the graphics settings, then lower them to the floor. If the framerate stays about the same, the CPU is most likely your bottleneck.
 
I have topped out in Super Mega Baseball 4 ranked #80 in homeruns. I'm only playing a game every 2 or 3 days, and I'm not getting any higher that way. My overall rank is in the mid 300's. My win total--I've never lost--is around #1500 (appx), so only 1500 people have played more games than I have if they haven't lost either. That makes it significantly less impressive. It also means this will be the last SMB :confused_old:
 
I continued with this game and it was going splendid. My deity had boosted all my abilities by 15 (pretty much doubling them), giving me plenty of mana to resummon my minions whenever they died, even while fighting multiple enemies.

I ran into some trouble when I encountered some javelin throwing centaurs. Javelins pierce through multiple units, meaning they would hit me regardless of the amount of summons I put between us. Luckily they were stuck behind some deep water, so I could retreat whenever I needed to heal myself and eventually whittled them down. It made me aware of a big weakness in my strategy that I didn't really have an answer to.

Not long after that, I found some sort of labyrinth that ended in a big room full of high level monsters. I actually managed them pretty well, since I could keep my minions in between us while staying in the labyrinth. It got a bit hairy when one managed to show up behind me, but I managed to survive that too. My defensive golem was the real MVP here. It doesn't have any attacks, it just increases the defense of my other minions, but it also has quite a lot of health and explodes when it dies, dealing quite a lot of damage and leaving behind some fires. It bought me a lot of time and did a lot of damage.

I started to get some confidence that I could whittle all these high level monsters down when a deep elf pyromaniac showed up. I'd encountered one before in another game where he was a pain in the butt, but this time was much worse. He has fire resistance, which meant my golem did far less damage. He can shoot fire bolts that pass through units, which meant he could hit me through my summons. But worst of all, he can teleport and summon fire spirits, meaning he ended up surrounding me with enemies, giving me no chance to retreat and recover.

As I'm writing this I do suddenly remember I had a wand of paralysis too. Wands are pretty rare and can only be used a limited number of times, so they're one of those items you save for when you need them and then forget about entirely. With the boost to my attributes I would have probably had a somewhat decent chance of success as well.

I just remembered I had a ring of fire resistance in my inventory as well...
 

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