January 2024 General Game Discussion Thread

[ZedClampet]

Happy New Year!

Since it’s already 2024 for some of us, I thought I’d go ahead and make this post while I’m waiting for my dinner (chicken and dumplings) to finish cooking.

I’ve got a lot of stuff to do today and tomorrow, so I’m not doing the whole big post thing this month. I’m sure everyone would be disappointed by that except for the fact that no one actually reads it. (I'm perfectly fine with that because I mostly make those posts for myself anyway)

Additionally, due to the Winter Sale, I’m having trouble sorting the January releases as I normally can, and I’m just not willing to work my way through 2000 January games.

I like combing through (a much smaller number of) the ‘coming soon’ games, so I’ll probably resume the regular posts next month, or I might experiment with it a bit. If you have any suggestions, let me know.

 

[ZedClampet]

I was born to be a cheater...Played some more Aliens Fireteam Elite with my kids today, and I keep coming out of the missions with the most kills, even beating (but barely) Guido.

I should leave it at that and let you marvel at how good I am, but actually my Demolisher's heavy weapon is just flat out a cheat. It tracks enemies for me. All I have to do is aim somewhat close to an enemy and pull the trigger and it zeros in and tracks the enemy until it's dead.

The game keeps giving me new weapons as if I don't want my magic gun. I got news for the game. I'll still be using that thing when the final credits roll.

So if you have a co-op buddy and want to play Aliens Fireteam Elite, if putting up ridiculous numbers each round is your goal, pick the Demolisher. You still have to worry about positioning, properly using your abilities, etc. It doesn't completely ruin the game. I had to be revived twice today, so it isn't quite a free ticket.

 

[BeardyHat]

I've burned myself out on Snowrunner again, after another 11.4 hours and now I'm poking around for something to play that's similarly low impact. Thinking about starting a new 4x, such as Endless Space 2 or Old World, as I already own both of them, but I'm not so sure right now.

I've played a little bit more of Realms of Arkania - Spear of Destiny (remake) and it's...ok? Seems pretty intriguing, but the battle system just induces fatigue in me. I like the idea of the game and the supposed granularity, but I'm not entirely sure I'll be able to get passed that battle system, as well as the slow pace. Currently, my party is level 1 and apparently, after the first time you fight a new enemy, you get 50exp, but now? I get 1xp for any battle, no matter how many enemies I kill and at level 1, I need 100 exp.

Again, seems interesting, but it might be a little too slow for me. But, it does keep nibbling at the back of my brain, causing me to keep going back to it for the time being.

Also cheating a bit on PC gaming right now and been playing quite a bite on my DSi today. I finally decided to start Infinite Space, which is pretty fun and interesting so far. It has enough to it to keep it interesting, but at the same time is pretty straightforward versus something like Realms of Arkania, so we'll see.

 

[ZedClampet]

I'm now the proud owner of Elden Ring. It's a big game AAA game, so there's no chance I'm going to finish it, so I had to wait for a decent sale.

 

[Zloth]

I’m sure everyone would be disappointed by that except for the fact that no one actually reads it.

I do!! Well, OK, I skip a few things that don't look interesting to me, but I look through way over half of it and even follow the links to a few games sometimes.

All I have to do is aim somewhat close to an enemy and pull the trigger and it zeros in and tracks the enemy until it's dead.

Smart weapons in Cyberpunk 2077 will curve bullets toward people's heads. I just took on a wicked boss with my wimpy little netrunner girl by using a smart shotgun. You can even bend shots around cover a little. You can't actually shoot through cover, though... that's what tech weapons are for.

I'm now the proud owner of Elden Ring. It's a big game AAA game, so there's no chance I'm going to finish it, so I had to wait for a decent sale.

The DLC for that should be showing up sometime soon.

 

[BeardyHat]

I'm now the proud owner of Elden Ring. It's a big game AAA game, so there's no chance I'm going to finish it, so I had to wait for a decent sale.

I've got almost 40 hours in it and that's probably enough? I'll probably eventually play some more when I'm up for another Souls game, but I definitely preferred Dark Souls 3 over Elden Ring.

Plus my wife really wanted to watch me play through DS3, so that was fun.

I reupped on Realms of Arkania - Blade of Destiny already (Think I called it Spear of Destiny before. Yay generic names) and decided after 3 hours, I should create a party from scratch with a little guide, so I did just that. However, I now don't have the motivation to level them up, so I just saved and quit for the time being. There's definitely something intriguing about this game, though I do wonder if I should just play the original, as it has charming pixel graphics versus the vomit inducing early Unity graphics of the remake.

 

[DXCHASE]

Happy 1 full rotation of the earth around the sun!

I rang in the new year, gaming wise that is, with starting my first run with Cyberpunk 2077's expansion Phantom Liberty and its pretty good! Runs good too with the 4070, looks great on OLED.

Netrunner imo is clearly the best class to go because theres nothing more fun that just one shotting elites with suicides, aint got time to have my smart bullets trace around the corner to kill you.

The QOL with this makes this an amazing game now but i really hope this kind of "redemption" doesnt become the norm because i can absolutely see that with Starfield or something.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

I'm now the proud owner of Elden Ring. It's a big game AAA game, so there's no chance I'm going to finish it, so I had to wait for a decent sale.

Oh! Youre gonna hate it

 

[Brian Boru]

I had to wait for a decent sale.

Patient! Cheapskate!! Enjoy!!!

 

[Colif]

most of games i got last year were free from Game Pass. Might even play one of them one day.

 

[ZedClampet]

Oh! Youre gonna hate it

I started to make a list of games that you would enjoy based on my not liking them. I was going to start with Dave the Diver.

 

[ZedClampet]

I've burned myself out on Snowrunner again, after another 11.4 hours and now I'm poking around for something to play that's similarly low impact. Thinking about starting a new 4x, such as Endless Space 2 or Old World, as I already own both of them, but I'm not so sure right now.

I've been wanting to try SnowRunner for awhile now. It's been on Game Pass for a long time. Decided to download it and give it a try.

 

[ZedClampet]

My Medieval Dynasty wife keeps saying, "Where have all the good men gone." I started to hit her in the head with my bronze hammer, but she's a good blacksmith and since she lives with me, she doesn't need her own house.

Also, look at our kid's stats:

The people you recruit to your village usually have 1s, 2s, and 3s on every stat. Little Tomir there is already my best blacksmith at age 2. Sadly, you can't even apprentice children until they are age 14, and they can't fully work until age 18, and there's almost no chance I'll still be playing then. A year takes 12 in game days, and each day lasts a couple of real world hours. So if one year takes 24 hours, and I have 16 years before I can use him as a blacksmith...yeah, that's probably not going to happen.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

I started to make a list of games that you would enjoy based on my not liking them. I was going to start with Dave the Diver.

I dont like the aesthetic of Dave the Diver from what Ive seen, but the idea that its apparently throwing a lot of random stuff in a bucket and mixing it up does seem curious. Its a wait for a big sale game for me, possible never get to it as theres a lot else ahead of it. Then again if its only a few hours maybe give it a try sometime.

If you liked Dark Souls, you'll get on alright with Elden Ring. Its just that expanded out, maybe a little too long tbh, but I loved playing the whole thing pretty extensively once. Theres a lot of optional dungeons and I did almost all of them. I've since played the first half-ish up to Leyndell twice more following pretty much the critical path, but always run out of steam there. I've done exactly the same with Dark Souls 1 funnily enough, only beaten Gwyn once, but I've beaten Orstein and Smough 3 times and stopped playing not long after.

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We've been playing through Cocoon with the kid today, as well as a bit of Donut County which still seems to be a cozy game for her. Cocoon is pretty good. Really nice art style and nice simple puzzles that are just about inside my frustration threshold.

 

[Zloth]

GOG threw this at me this morning:

It seems to be a bug that's been in Galaxy for a few months now, at least. Things like that, combined with STILL calling Galaxy "beta" software, doesn't really instill a lot of confidence. Actually, it gives me confidence that GOG has little confidence in Galaxy.

Runs good too with the 4070....

If a game doesn't run well with a 4070, or any machine with any business slotting a 4070, then the game doesn't run well.

Sadly, you can't even apprentice children until they are age 14, and they can't fully work until age 18...

!? Is this Medieval Dynasty or Modern Cosplay Dynasty??

 

[Brian Boru]

if one year takes 24 hours, and I have 16 years before

That seems odd, why would the game do that? It makes kids useless in practice, and it's not a real-life sim, right?

GOG has little confidence in Galaxy

@Sarafan may have an update there. I've stopped using Galaxy as my 'Do I already have that game?' tool, ran into some issue with it a few months ago.

 

[BeardyHat]

GOG threw this at me this morning:

It seems to be a bug that's been in Galaxy for a few months now, at least. Things like that, combined with STILL calling Galaxy "beta" software, doesn't really instill a lot of confidence. Actually, it gives me confidence that GOG has little confidence in Galaxy.

Hah, I've had this same issue!

Galaxy is a nice piece of software; fairly simple to use, mostly pretty quick, love that I have easy access to my library.

That said, it doesn't offer cloud saves on a lot of games that have them on Steam. Plus there's this obnoxious thing it does where it consumes all of your CPU after you return a computer from sleep and the only way to get it to stop is to shut it down completely.

 

[ZedClampet]

That seems odd, why would the game do that? It makes kids useless in practice, and it's not a real-life sim, right?



@Sarafan may have an update there. I've stopped using Galaxy as my 'Do I already have that game?' tool, ran into some issue with it a few months ago.

It's a pretty extreme sim except for the time allowances, the lack of a need to sleep, and the RPG mechanics. However, I was taking a wild guess above on game time versus real time, and I was off by a large margin. One in-game year takes 10 real life hours. So if I'm waiting 16 more years for my son to grow up, that's 160 game hours, which is still crazy, but not as crazy as I thought. If I make my character sleep at night, which I haven't been doing, that would cut it down by about a third, which is still over 100 hours.

As far as NPC life cycles go, the women stay pregnant for 9 in game months (7.5 hours of game time) and then go on maternity leave for 2 years (20 hours of game time). I had almost half of my village on maternity leave there for awhile, which is one reason my character never sleeps.

At age 14 kids can become an apprentice. At age 18 they become full workers.

At age 60, there is a small chance that the character will die every day. This chance gradually increases every year. The woman I bought gifts for my wife from passed away, and no one took her place, so I'm having to travel to a much more distant village to buy the luxury items. I don't actually have to buy the gifts very often, though. Maybe never. She's stayed at 100 percent affection the whole time we've been married, but she does occasionally mention something she wants, so I track it down and buy it.

 

[Brian Boru]

she does occasionally mention something she wants, so I track it down and buy it

Oh, it IS a real-life sim, huh.

 

[ZedClampet]

Finished our co-op TWW3 game with the latest DLC factions. We seriously need to up the difficulty from 'normal' though. We're just not having any problems at all.

Speaking of problems, I figured out what my RTS problem is. Too often I like to watch the results of my orders instead of giving an order and moving quickly on to the next units. Next thing you know I've been watching the same small group of units for several minutes, and everything else has gone to hell.

 

[Brian Boru]

RTS … I like to watch the results of my orders instead of giving an order and moving quickly on to the next units

There's no one playstyle, eg mine sounds a bit like yours—focus on one activity or excursion at a time, rather than bouncing around the place in an APM frenzy.

You need to lock up some sides and areas, while you adventure in the other. Eg if it was Chess, you might gridlock the center and King's side and fight the game on the Queen's side.

 

[Colif]

It is NES but I think we can let retro consoles have a day
Level 157

 

[Brian Boru]

Level 157

I didn't even know there was a Pro Tetris scene. The techniques they came up with, and then the ability to execute—very impressive and cool.

 

[Sarafan]

I reupped on Realms of Arkania - Blade of Destiny already (Think I called it Spear of Destiny before. Yay generic names) and decided after 3 hours, I should create a party from scratch with a little guide, so I did just that. However, I now don't have the motivation to level them up, so I just saved and quit for the time being. There's definitely something intriguing about this game, though I do wonder if I should just play the original, as it has charming pixel graphics versus the vomit inducing early Unity graphics of the remake.

I heard a lot of bad things about the two Realms of Arcania remakes. I also watched a stream on GOG's Twitch channel yesterday from the RoA: Star Trail (remake of the second installment) and I wasn't impressed at all. Probably it's a better idea to play the original games, although it might be a quite hardcore experience.

It seems to be a bug that's been in Galaxy for a few months now, at least. Things like that, combined with STILL calling Galaxy "beta" software, doesn't really instill a lot of confidence. Actually, it gives me confidence that GOG has little confidence in Galaxy.

Yeah, such things have been happening for a while now. Never encountered a similar problem myself though. GOG had job cuts some time ago and it appears that the Galaxy team was one of the victims of this policy. There wasn't a major feature update for a very long time now and the integrations aren't working anymore. I have a feeling that the app went into "maintenance mode". Too bad, because at its peak it was a wonderful tool.

@Sarafan may have an update there. I've stopped using Galaxy as my 'Do I already have that game?' tool, ran into some issue with it a few months ago.

Have you tried Playnite? If you want, you can use it as an catalogue app only. No need to launch games from it. I was using it before I reinstalled Windows a few months ago. Now I'm planning to install it again, because I caught myself some time ago on wanting to accidentally buy games on Steam that I already own on Epic.

 

[Pifanjr]

Finished our co-op TWW3 game with the latest DLC factions. We seriously need to up the difficulty from 'normal' though. We're just not having any problems at all.

The battle difficulty also changes AI behaviour, though I'm not entirely sure how exactly. I think on normal it mostly just rushes your army head on and on harder difficulties it actually tries flanking.

Speaking of problems, I figured out what my RTS problem is. Too often I like to watch the results of my orders instead of giving an order and moving quickly on to the next units. Next thing you know I've been watching the same small group of units for several minutes, and everything else has gone to hell.

This is exactly what I do and why I prefer RTS games that are slower or simpler. Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak for example was nice because there is no base building and only a couple different units.