August 2025 General Game Discussion

[neogunhero]

Pulled the trigger and picked up Enshrouded over the weekend and I’m glad I did. 7 hours later and I’m still looking forward to more.

It shares a lot of similarities with Minecraft funnily enough. You have to terraform the world to find certain materials, building and be block by block like Minecraft if desired, stuff like that. It shares a lot of similar features to other survival games like constantly chopping wood but I don’t mind it.

Speaking of which, the terraforming and building features are amazing. I can see so many great ideas coming out of it, though for now I just have basic wood and stone shacks.

The quest system is fun, but I feel like I’m progressing too slowly. Perhaps it’s because I’m playing solo, I may need to change some options around. I’ve just been playing on the default mode, thought that may be a bit hard for solo players. Combat difficulty isn’t too hard, but resource gathering and XP rate seems a bit slow. 7 hours in and I’m only level 3 which a handful of perks.

The Shroud is basically the Nether in Minecraft. High risk but good loot. There are even Shroud specific trees lol. I can’t get the Minecraft comparisons out of my head, but at least that’s not a negative. The game is still a ton of fun.

Performance wise, I had to drop down to Medium and use DLSS Quality to hit a stable 60fps, and it doesn’t look bad at all. Some areas start to dip a little in frames but doesn’t go below 50 which is good. Hopefully later patches improve performance a bit more.

Overall really enjoying my time with it. After spending so long trying to figure out what game to play next, I’m glad that I picked this one up. I’ve been wanting it since it came out January 2024.

I also played some BF2042 and yeah… maybe not in the right mindset for it. The maps are just way too big and empty. People want large maps for BF games but not like what they have in 2042, that’s because they introduced 128 player servers which of course means they have to make the maps larger. The game itself also isn’t my favorite BF game, the hero system is a bit lame. The new map Iwo Jima had so many issues with it too, constant missing textures and holes in the map. Pretty lame.

 

[BeardyHat]

i played it on the playstation. i did have fun with it and i agree the tanky controls at times can be irritating. Especially when jumping is involved and some of the combat situations as its fairly clunky to move. Especially when you try to make a few steps out or try to roll out into the open to blast a guard with flak.

Still, i'm hoping the play the sequel crusader no regret on dosbox or GOG. But too many games to play. just bought another 2 games and 2025 is apparently has become the 3rd biggest spend of my entire steam collection. Although, i argue that each chapter of tales of the monkey island collection shouldn't be counted as a game each. But its irrelevant as i feel like a damn junkie.

I'm having the exact same issue buying games.

I'm really enjoying Crusader (which I did buy for $3), but came home from this trip and ended-up buying the GTA Definitive Editions. Last week I bought Robocop and haven't even touched it yet. I did at least start GTA: SA, but I still want to play and finish Crusader. My goal to spend less this year is probably blown to hell already, since there's plenty of other stuff I've bought this year and barely touched.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Haven't thought about this in awhile, but Alan Wake was delisted for a time due to expiring licenses. Not sure when they brought it back, but I'm glad they did. I always thought it was funny that they had a marketing agreement with Energizer batteries when the batteries in the game were constantly going dead. They also had product placement agreements with Ford, Xbox and Verizon. I wonder if it was some of these agreements that caused it to be delisted for awhile?

Seems it was music, which I think is quite often the case when a game is delisted, doesnt seem like anyone knows which track exactly. Was back up pretty quickly though.

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Ive been playing Tower Tactics: Liberation, which is one of the most generic names for a game Ive heard in a while. Its pretty good though, its a TD game set in space, but it also has a Roguelike map similar to Slay The Spire or FTL which you have to navigate with different events, shops, resting sites, fights and elite fights. Its also a deck builder, just to hit the final buzz word of the last year or so and you pick up new cards as you progress through encounters. All these elements put together result in a pretty engaging game.

The deck building part comes in as your towers are all cards in your deck and have an energy cost. You can pick as many cards as you have mana each wave and place them on the tiles. You also have active spells which use a seperate mana pool to stun, slow or damage the enemies as they go around. There seems to be different decks to unlock once you beat the game, and possibly other RogueLike unlocks

I'm not really familiar with TD games outside of a bit of Bloons TD when it was a flash game, but this seems like a more actively involved take on the genre so far and I like it quite a lot.

 

[neogunhero]

Performance wise, I had to drop down to Medium and use DLSS Quality to hit a stable 60fps, and it doesn’t look bad at all. Some areas start to dip a little in frames but doesn’t go below 50 which is good. Hopefully later patches improve performance a bit more.

A hotfix for Enshrouded was pushed out at 5am this morning, and included this in the notes: "We are aware that many players are reporting exceedingly long VFX shader compilation times, and are working on these, along with many other improvements such as performance for lower-end computers, to add them to future updates."

Thank the game dev gods for answering my wishes.

Shader compilation took a long time for me too, maybe a good 20-30 minutes. Enough time for me to grab some snacks and do some stretches which was well needed, I then proceeded to play for 4 hours in one sitting which is quite rare for me these days.

 

[Zed Clampet]

A hotfix for Enshrouded was pushed out at 5am this morning, and included this in the notes: "We are aware that many players are reporting exceedingly long VFX shader compilation times, and are working on these, along with many other improvements such as performance for lower-end computers, to add them to future updates."

Thank the game dev gods for answering my wishes.

Shader compilation took a long time for me too, maybe a good 20-30 minutes. Enough time for me to grab some snacks and do some stretches which was well needed, I then proceeded to play for 4 hours in one sitting which is quite rare for me these days.

Glad you are enjoying it. There is a lot to do. I have a little over 100 hours in it, but I'm basically waiting for 1.0 now instead of hopping back in every update.

I think Nightingale is very good, as well, and they have made a lot of progress on that one. Opinions vary on Nightingale, but it's just haters being haters. When you launch in rough condition, even in early access, a lot of people never get over it.

 

[neogunhero]

Glad you are enjoying it. There is a lot to do. I have a little over 100 hours in it, but I'm basically waiting for 1.0 now instead of hopping back in every update.

Is there a way to traverse faster across the world? I have the glider now which is helpful for getting off of high places, but not great for traveling long distances. I'm not a huge fan of how I have to run everywhere yet my stamina is quite limited. I unlocked the ability to store more altars, so I built another one pretty far from my main base to fast travel to.

 

[neogunhero]

Anyone have some good experiences using the streaming service Nvidia GeForce Now? My wife saw me playing Enshrouded and mentioned how she wishes we can play together but her laptop is way too underpowered. I looked into GeForce Now and seems to be a good idea. Only $10 a month, though you have to own the game first. She can play on the iPad using a controller while I’m at my PC, would just need to set the iPad in a way that’s comfortable.

 

[Zed Clampet]

A hotfix for Enshrouded was pushed out at 5am this morning, and included this in the notes: "We are aware that many players are reporting exceedingly long VFX shader compilation times, and are working on these, along with many other improvements such as performance for lower-end computers, to add them to future updates."

Thank the game dev gods for answering my wishes.

Shader compilation took a long time for me too, maybe a good 20-30 minutes. Enough time for me to grab some snacks and do some stretches which was well needed, I then proceeded to play for 4 hours in one sitting which is quite rare for me these days.

Never mind my Nightingale stuff above. They've had a major update that completely changed the game. I'll have to replay it before I can recommend it.

 

[Zed Clampet]

Is there a way to traverse faster across the world? I have the glider now which is helpful for getting off of high places, but not great for traveling long distances. I'm not a huge fan of how I have to run everywhere yet my stamina is quite limited. I unlocked the ability to store more altars, so I built another one pretty far from my main base to fast travel to.

The two that I'm aware of are

1) strategically placing alters/bases for fast travel

2) I can't remember what they are called, but the really tall towers that you find around are puzzle/treasure dungeons (no enemies except for traps), and when you get to the top floor, you unlock a new fast travel point. When you travel to these, you'll want your glider with you so you can just jump off the roof instead of working your way back down to the ground level.

Most of the map is blocked in the beginning by the red shroud, which you can't go through. Be sure to upgrade your alters to remove it.

 

[neogunhero]

Anyone have some good experiences using the streaming service Nvidia GeForce Now? My wife saw me playing Enshrouded and mentioned how she wishes we can play together but her laptop is way too underpowered. I looked into GeForce Now and seems to be a good idea. Only $10 a month, though you have to own the game first. She can play on the iPad using a controller while I’m at my PC, would just need to set the iPad in a way that’s comfortable.

Or I could just put it on the laptop... idk why I defaulted to the tablet. The laptop is "good enough" and hits the requirements for Geforce now, and she could hook it up to the bedroom TV while playing. I'm really considering trying it out. They offer day passes which is strange because it's much more expensive than just buying a full month. They also offer a free 1 hour trial mode, I may check that out first before committing fully to buying it. This could be a great way for us to game together on newer games, granted that the service works well. The only things her laptop can handle well is Roblox and Minecraft.

 

[Johnway]

I'm having the exact same issue buying games.

I'm really enjoying Crusader (which I did buy for $3), but came home from this trip and ended-up buying the GTA Definitive Editions. Last week I bought Robocop and haven't even touched it yet. I did at least start GTA: SA, but I still want to play and finish Crusader. My goal to spend less this year is probably blown to hell already, since there's plenty of other stuff I've bought this year and barely touched.

atm i'm working through my 2018 backlog of indie games, but path of exile has swallowed all my time. the build i have is insanely powerful and so far nothing has even proven difficult. but its not the peak difficulty content and i would like to move to the next stages of the super power which is going to prove a bit tricky. I might just stick around with my current build and see what happens,

I guess its partly because i lucked out on some decent gear. The body armor i bought is effectively going to last me the entire game. The main weapon however can do with some improvement and i need to improve my other gear, but nothing has turned up yet. Might have to buy it but without the top currency i'm scrapping the barrel for items.

Once October rolls around i'll know more where we stand. i might have gotten the 28 challenges and call it quits or i cut my losses and just stop. Assuming the next POE1 league is around the corner.

 

[neogunhero]

I'm not really familiar with TD games outside of a bit of Bloons TD when it was a flash game, but this seems like a more actively involved take on the genre so far and I like it quite a lot.

I've been wanting a good TD game. I remember playing TD on Warcraft 3 back when that game was new and loving it. Bloons is fun but very casual, I'll boot it up on my phone every now and then during roadtrips. GemCraft went on sale recently for under $5 but I hesitated it buy it. I remember playing Sanctum 2 a long time ago so I don't know how it holds up today, but it was an interesting cross between TD and FPS. I may give that another shot some day, it's sounding pretty interesting and fairly refreshing. I'll definitely keep an eye out for Tower Tactics.

Edit: The Sanctum games were made by the same people responsible for Satisfactory, that's a neat lil bit of gaming lore.

 

[Zed Clampet]

@Kaamos_Llama and @neogunhero and anyone else possibly interested in tower defense, you should give the Emberward demo a try. Warning, though, the game starts off very easy on the normal difficulty and the demo kind of reflects that. But it does get more difficult.

The thing that separates Embarward is the ability to build your own enemy mazes out of Tetris pieces.

Emberward on Steam

Build twisting mazes with tetromino blocks and deploy unique towers in this engaging roguelite tower defense game!

store.steampowered.com

It's $14.99, so not too expensive.

 

[Zed Clampet]

Hey, @Frindis ,

If you've started playing Dune Awakening, the first skill you need to learn is the Shigawire Claw from the Trooper Tree. Once you use that (and combine it with the planar belt--which is kind of like a jetpack) you will never replace it with another skill, at least not permanently. I think the first trainer for the Troopers is at the trading post there in the starter area. The Trooper Tree also has a couple of endless grenades that come in handy early.

 

[Pifanjr]

I'm getting a bit bored of Backpack Heroes. The story is effectively nonexistent after the first few missions, which is a shame because there's a lot of interesting bits of worldbuilding you can find. The third area is still far too easy, but runs take a lot longer now that I have to complete three areas to finish.

I only failed a mission once and it's because it gave me an item I had to remember to use in every combat or die and I forgot about it when I entered the third area. Luckily I could restart the game and load the autosave at the start of the area.

I do have two characters unlocked I haven't tried yet, so I'll at least give them a go before I give up on the game entirely.

@Kaamos_Llama and @neogunhero and anyone else possibly interested in tower defense, you should give the Emberward demo a try. Warning, though, the game starts off very easy on the normal difficulty and the demo kind of reflects that. But it does get more difficult.

The thing that separates Embarward is the ability to build your own enemy mazes out of Tetris pieces.

Emberward on Steam

Build twisting mazes with tetromino blocks and deploy unique towers in this engaging roguelite tower defense game!

store.steampowered.com

It's $14.99, so not too expensive.

I second the Emberward demo. I don't care much for tower defense games most of the time, but I really enjoyed Emberward.

 

[Zloth]

I went into a catacomb dungeon. Found a big nasty guy down below me (an "omen") that didn't look like he had any ranged attack. Sweet! I fired away at him from above... but every time I cast a spell, I inch forward a little and eventually fell in. The close range battle went poorly and I died.

Next time in I was more careful and finished the big guy off. I wanted my runes back and, from what I've seen of the dungeons so far, the devs aren't the kind who will leave me trapped down there with no way to get out, so I jumped in again and got them. Got some other nice stuff there, too, and started exploring.

One way led to some stairs up. Probably the way back up toward where I came from. No need to go back there. The other way led to a small room. As I came toward the room, another omen walked down the opposite hall and stopped at the small room, blocking my exit. He didn't see me yet, so I snuck back a bit and waited for him to move.

Meanwhile, yet another omen had gone into the previous room that I had jumped down to and was circling around it.

Finally, the omen guarding they small room exit started moving toward me, then turned around and started walking away. I got impatient and ran past him. He's a big, slow guy, so I got around him easy. Sure enough, the hallway turned and there was another room with a ladder. I ran to the ladder and started going up. The big guy hit me as I was going up, so I sucked down a healing potion and kept going. The big guy FOLLOWED me! That's one seriously strong ladder!

I got to the top of the ladder and into a room with another omen, looking the other way (possibly sleeping) and an exit that's unguarded. I ran that way and found myself on a balcony area above where I jumped down in the first place! There was also the lever I was looking for. And then the omen following me... glitched!? He suddenly lost interest and started wandering back.

Sweet! I went to the lever and... ROAR! Hmmm, the omen unglitched and came at me fast. I tried rolling, but there was a statue in the way. I tried rolling again, but the lever was in the way. I tried rolling again, but the omen was in the way - I died. Those big guys are apparently smart enough to fake glitching to lure out unsuspecting adventurers!

OK, back in again. Shoot the lower omen again until he dies. There's nothing to pick up this time, so I quickly go to the small room and hide in the corner just as the omen that killed me walks up and starts guarding the exit. Ha! Now I just have to wait for him to start walking forward like he did last time and I can sneak by!

But he didn't move. I waited at least five minutes, and he just stood there. No way did it take that long before. Something I did must have triggered him last time. <sigh> I try sneaking by him from the side. There wasn't much space, I *must* have brushed up against the thing, but it didn't notice! I snuck the rest of the way, got my runes back, pulled the lever, and was able to go after the boss!

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Anyone have some good experiences using the streaming service Nvidia GeForce Now? My wife saw me playing Enshrouded and mentioned how she wishes we can play together but her laptop is way too underpowered. I looked into GeForce Now and seems to be a good idea. Only $10 a month, though you have to own the game first. She can play on the iPad using a controller while I’m at my PC, would just need to set the iPad in a way that’s comfortable.

Never used it myself but Ive heard mixed things. Some people say its amazing and others say the latency makes it unplayable, I guess it depends on your connection/location and how sensitive you are to latency.

I've been wanting a good TD game. I remember playing TD on Warcraft 3 back when that game was new and loving it. Bloons is fun but very casual, I'll boot it up on my phone every now and then during roadtrips. GemCraft went on sale recently for under $5 but I hesitated it buy it. I remember playing Sanctum 2 a long time ago so I don't know how it holds up today, but it was an interesting cross between TD and FPS. I may give that another shot some day, it's sounding pretty interesting and fairly refreshing. I'll definitely keep an eye out for Tower Tactics.

Edit: The Sanctum games were made by the same people responsible for Satisfactory, that's a neat lil bit of gaming lore.

GemCraft is a new one on me, wishlisted it, thanks.

According to my Steam its similar to that other famous TD game I played, Papers Please.

@Kaamos_Llama and @neogunhero and anyone else possibly interested in tower defense, you should give the Emberward demo a try. Warning, though, the game starts off very easy on the normal difficulty and the demo kind of reflects that. But it does get more difficult.

The thing that separates Embarward is the ability to build your own enemy mazes out of Tetris pieces.

Emberward on Steam

Build twisting mazes with tetromino blocks and deploy unique towers in this engaging roguelite tower defense game!

store.steampowered.com

It's $14.99, so not too expensive.

Ah, Ive seen someone playing this. Thanks added it for when it comes to 1.0.

 

[neogunhero]

Emberward on Steam

Build twisting mazes with tetromino blocks and deploy unique towers in this engaging roguelite tower defense game!

store.steampowered.com

Will definitely check this out, the reviews make it seem great.

Never used it myself but Ive heard mixed things. Some people say its amazing and others say the latency makes it unplayable, I guess it depends on your connection/location and how sensitive you are to latency.

I've used Xbox Cloud before and it was okay. Latency was an issue for sure, but manageable if you played a game that didn’t require fast reaction times. I played the entirety of Dead Island 2 this way before it was on PC Game Pass, and found it okay.

GeForce Now was recently upgraded to RTX 50 series GPUs and they also claim to have improved latency and overall performance, especially for wifi users. They have a 1 hour free trial mode that restricts it to 1080p 60fps but that's all my TV can go to lol, I'm seriously considering giving it a shot.

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View: https://youtu.be/L0Wv6kkloCU?si=D2IlPhIoNSq_CINb


This looks absolutely amazing to me. It's insane that the quality far exceeds anything Bethesda could have done with the old Fallout games. I really should redownload GZDoom.

 

[Pifanjr]

Anyone have some good experiences using the streaming service Nvidia GeForce Now? My wife saw me playing Enshrouded and mentioned how she wishes we can play together but her laptop is way too underpowered. I looked into GeForce Now and seems to be a good idea. Only $10 a month, though you have to own the game first. She can play on the iPad using a controller while I’m at my PC, would just need to set the iPad in a way that’s comfortable.

See also this article:

I got my hands on Nvidia GeForce Now's new RTX 5080 upgrade and I couldn't tell the games weren't running locally, but 4K with frame gen was a little laggy

I was impressed with the low latency for competitive shooters.

www.pcgamer.com

 

[Frindis]

Hey, @Frindis ,

If you've started playing Dune Awakening, the first skill you need to learn is the Shigawire Claw from the Trooper Tree. Once you use that (and combine it with the planar belt--which is kind of like a jetpack) you will never replace it with another skill, at least not permanently. I think the first trainer for the Troopers is at the trading post there in the starter area. The Trooper Tree also has a couple of endless grenades that come in handy early.

I liked the claw, but unfortunately, not so much the game. It could be that this type of MMO is just not for me, but I did not find any human players in my roughly 9 hours of play. I got to the Griffin trade post where you get that claw skill you mentioned, and I ventured over to the second area and neither had any players on it. All the servers in Europe were also low populated, but I could see tons of buildings everywhere, with a few of them decaying.

What I did like:

- Looks absolutely gorgeous!
- Movement is great, love that you can jump from super high distances and find a hold just before you land to avoid damage.
- Crafting is great, and I like the different sounds the items make that you craft with. The replicator comes to mind here.
- Shai-Hulud looks and sounds cool, even though it seems to be a bit too easy to drive past. It could just be because I have not ventured into larger distances.

What I did not like:

- No players early on. Always been used to very populated starter zones and main hubs.
- The endgame tier system looks to be very grindy, perhaps as a way to stall the lack of endgame content. Not sure, but I have played similar MMOs in the past with the same system, and they were not to my liking.
- AI is extremely dumb with line of sight. They seem to be better at moving vertically and over longer distances horizontally, but close up, I can just stand behind a mineral node and they will either get stuck or just run into it instead of circling.

 

[neogunhero]

See also this article:

I got my hands on Nvidia GeForce Now's new RTX 5080 upgrade and I couldn't tell the games weren't running locally, but 4K with frame gen was a little laggy

I was impressed with the low latency for competitive shooters.

www.pcgamer.com

Just saw that after I made my last post lol. Seems that the issue with latency is when you go to 1440p or higher, and at high frame rates. My TV doesn't go beyond 1080p 60fps so hopefully I don't have an issue with it. My internet speed is decent, but I'm unsure about latency which is more important in this scenario. I'll definitely be checking this out, if not for my wife then for me to be able to game in bed

 

[Zed Clampet]

- Movement is great, love that you can jump from super high distances and find a hold

Once you get a planar belt, you won't even need to grab onto anything

- No players early on. Always been used to very populated starter zones and main hubs.

Ah, I was hoping that you had read my post from the day before where I commented that we had only seen a couple of people outside of the deep desert. You could always come to my server

- The endgame tier system looks to be very grindy, perhaps as a way to stall the lack of endgame content. Not sure, but I have played similar MMOs in the past with the same system, and they were not to my liking.

Agree. They know they need to add more endgame content. They have a very aggressive update schedule through the rest of the year, and I think the first pass at new endgame stuff hits in September. If you like survival gameplay, you can probably get about 100 hours out of what is there right now before you need to participate in Landsraad or go to the Deep Desert.

- AI is extremely dumb with line of sight. They seem to be better at moving vertically and over longer distances horizontally, but close up, I can just stand behind a mineral node and they will either get stuck or just run into it instead of circling.

That's interesting. I've got almost 200 hours and haven't seen that. Maybe there was a bug in the last update that caused it, and they'll fix it quickly maybe.

 

[Zed Clampet]

Just saw that after I made my last post lol. Seems that the issue with latency is when you go to 1440p or higher, and at high frame rates. My TV doesn't go beyond 1080p 60fps so hopefully I don't have an issue with it. My internet speed is decent, but I'm unsure about latency which is more important in this scenario. I'll definitely be checking this out, if not for my wife then for me to be able to game in bed

Almost relevant but probably not, Moonlight/Sunshine only really work okay at 780p. These are open source versions of GeForce Now that allow you to stream from one PC to another. I'm assuming that Nvidia has made some pretty good advancements, though, after they split this off for people to use for free. Also, sometimes it's harder to get low latency from two devices in the same household.

 

[neogunhero]

Almost relevant but probably not, Moonlight/Sunshine only really work okay at 780p. These are open source versions of GeForce Now that allow you to stream from one PC to another. I'm assuming that Nvidia has made some pretty good advancements, though, after they split this off for people to use for free. Also, sometimes it's harder to get low latency from two devices in the same household.

Local streaming doesn't work that great for me. I've done Steam's remote play before, and perhaps it was the receiving device that was creating the bottleneck, but the latency was very bad and made playing unenjoyable. Picture quality was great though, which I found strange.

 

[Frindis]

Once you get a planar belt, you won't even need to grab onto anything

But I like grabbing, *looks around* but not at bars!

Ah, I was hoping that you had read my post from the day before where I commented that we had only seen a couple of people outside of the deep desert. You could always come to my server

I guess introducing players to the world first as a solo and emphasizing the loneliness of the desert is a way to go, but kind of weird. I do wonder if they might have decided on this strategy because they also did the same in Age of Conan. Kind of like if you make it more solo at first, at least players will not know the scope of just how many people are playing, and that might also make it harder to refund.

That's interesting. I've got almost 200 hours and haven't seen that. Maybe there was a bug in the last update that caused it, and they'll fix it quickly maybe.

It could be more related to the starter zone, maybe they dumbed down the AI. I don't think so though, seems complicated to program. If not, you should be able to replicate this if you go to any of the small camps with one or two AI protecting it, and then hug some larger object that they can't see through or from the sides.