Random Game Thoughts Thread - January 29 - February 4

[ZedClampet]

Happy 85th birthday to my dad. Took him to eat lunch. His annoying girlfriend is growing on me.

Started playing Astroneer, and I discovered that I'm better at games now than I was the first time I played it. I used to die in their treacherous caves all the time. This go through I've yet to die.

Townscaper is a nice time waster if you've never played it. Wouldn't pay much for it though.

 

[mainer]

Happy birthday to Elder Clampet! Congratulations for having the perseverance to raise Zed into the man he is today!

From the end of last week's random game thoughts thread:

Anyone playing Dead Space yet?

Not yet for me, though it's on my Steam wish list and it has gotten very good reviews:
Dead Space review | PC Gamer

I've never played any of the original Dead Space games (though I've also wish listed them), but they remind me of the old System Shock games, even though they're more "shooter" oriented. I'm definitely interested, though I may wait for a sale later this year.

As much as I love to dump on Andrew Wilson & EA (Electronic Arts), they have produced some quality remakes/remasters of older PC games recently, like Mass Effect Legendary and Dead Space.

On a related "space game" note was this recently updated article from PCG of the best space games on PC (having added the Dead Space remake):
The best space games on PC: A universe of games for everyone | PC Gamer

I recognize most of those game titles, though I've actually only played a few of them, but seeing as that list goes as far back as 1993, I'd like to add a couple games that I feel should be on that list:

Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic
Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 2: Sith Lords
Dark Forces

Yeah, okay, that's three. Anyone else want to add to that list? I see that one of @Zloth 's favorite games is not included, X4 Foundations.

 

[Zloth]

Yeah, okay, that's three. Anyone else want to add to that list? I see that one of @Zloth 's favorite games is not included, X4 Foundations.

It's mentioned in the comments from time to time.

Freelancer gets mentioned a lot, too, but I don't believe that's available for sale anywhere.

I would add the X series (obviously), BattleTech, and Mechwarrior 5. Subnautica if that is "spacey" enough.

P.S. Doom spends a lot of time on Mars, so is that a 'space game series'?

 

[Pifanjr]

It's mentioned in the comments from time to time.

Freelancer gets mentioned a lot, too, but I don't believe that's available for sale anywhere.

I would add the X series (obviously), BattleTech, and Mechwarrior 5. Subnautica if that is "spacey" enough.

P.S. Doom spends a lot of time on Mars, so is that a 'space game series'?

I feel like a space game is different than a sci-fi game. Flying through space should be a major part of the gameplay. Mass Effect and Alien: Isolation for example don't fit on the list in my opinion.

 

[ZedClampet]

I agree with @Pifanjr about that wonky list. Astro Colony is a genuine space game, and I enjoyed it tremendously, but I wouldn't put it on a "Best" list. I don't know, maybe Stationeers belongs there, but I haven't played enough of it to know. Empyrion (sp?) is more of a space game than 90 percent of the list, but it's not that great. And Osiris New Dawn...again, very much a space game...should only appear on lists with curse words in the title.

Adds and Potential Adds

Lone Echo--Absolutely belongs on the list.
Warframe--Includes dog fighting in spaceships. Should be on the list.
Avorion--Should be on the list
Star Citizen--No idea what's going on there.
FTL--I've heard it's good, but I've never played it.
Dyson Sphere Program--maybe
Pulsar-Lost Colony--maybe
Chorus--looks great, but I haven't played it

 

[Brian Boru]

annoying girlfriend is growing on me

Happened me once—didn't last. HB Zeddad, what other games does he play?

I'm still wandering thru the Match 3 I outlined before, which nobody cares about 😢

 

[ZedClampet]

I'm still wandering thru the Match 3 I outlined before, which nobody cares about 😢

Welcome to my world Nobody cares about my games either.

I've only played one Match 3, so I'm not really overly familiar with the genre. I used to love to play casual games, but Facebook mostly ruined it for me. I mostly played word games, but I liked Angry Birds and Candy Crush, too. I guess Tetris would also have to be included. Never mind, the more I think about it, the more I remember...

Oh, I watched someone play a dating sim one time where how you did on the date depended on a round of Match 3. People said the game's version of M3 was really good, but I never tried it. I kind of zoned out when she got to that portion of the game. Wasn't much to watch.

 

[Zloth]

There's a DLC mission in Mechwarrior 5 that's... overambitious, let's say. The mission involves moving through a large Mech factory complex, destroying enemy mechs along the way. Fine, cool, wonderful - but there's a thing: you need to keep a lid on the damage done to the factory. There's a progress bar on the top showing the health of the factory. Bump into a wall, the bar moves town a little. Miss a shot and hit a pipeline instead, the bar goes down a little.

The thing is, your allies don't understand this at all. When they want to go from A to B, they will walk through any buildings in their paths. "Herd of bulls in giant china shop." The enemy has given up on keeping the factory, too, so they're blasting or even flying right through walls!

I tried doing the mission twice. It was CRAZY frustrating!! Mechs in my squad would get stuck trying to jump up to a ramp and failing, so I would switch to pilot that mech, do the jump right - and find that another mech had followed me into the hole I just got out of.

But hey, it's time for the big football game! This was also crazy frustrating, but it was a more important crazy frustrating. The QB was doing OK but not as good as normal with his bad ankle. Receivers were dropping like flies. They were putting up a good fight, but it just wasn't quite working out.... but wait! If this is so frustrating, what happens if I try to play that frustrating mission while watching the game be frustrating?

It worked! The frustration of the video game seemed like nothing compared to the football game. Being less frustrated made the mission easier, too! I got right through the mission without anyone even losing a limb! And the Chiefs somehow won, too.

I feel like a space game is different than a sci-fi game. Flying through space should be a major part of the gameplay. Mass Effect and Alien: Isolation for example don't fit on the list in my opinion.

That would help out a lot. From that article, it seems like "SF games that take place somewhere other than Earth." Maybe even require at least 30% of the game to take place in space so you don't get things like Portal 2 just because there's one quick scene at the end that's in space.

 

[ZedClampet]

There's a DLC mission in Mechwarrior 5 that's... overambitious, let's say. The mission involves moving through a large Mech factory complex, destroying enemy mechs along the way. Fine, cool, wonderful - but there's a thing: you need to keep a lid on the damage done to the factory. There's a progress bar on the top showing the health of the factory. Bump into a wall, the bar moves town a little. Miss a shot and hit a pipeline instead, the bar goes down a little.

There's at least one similar mission in the very early game, but the damage is kind of irrelevant because you don't have a team yet, and the enemy may not even deploy a mech. Not sure. I think you were trying to defend an outpost, and the amount of damage it could endure was limited. I seem to remember accidentally crashing into a building. The controls were really hard for me at first.

Not a fan of either team in the Super Bowl, but I dislike the Eagles more.

 

[DXCHASE]

Our cat passed over the weekend, we are sad to see our Dink go . He would sit with us when we played games etc. like cute cats do. He was 16. Adopted him when he was 1 or so and had 1 eye. We also have a dog that is elderly and going to pass soon so its been rough already, this was unexpected, though he was old, he just passed suddenly. RIP

In less sad news im blasting my way through this game titled CULTIC its a nice original duke-nukem-esque game. I will be writing more when i complete it for the last game completed thread.

 

[Pifanjr]

I had 1.5 hours to play a game this afternoon. I kinda wanted to play something else than Warhammer 3, but I couldn't think of anything and I didn't want to waste my time just looking for a new game.

So I started Warhammer 3, saw I had quicksaved right before a battle that gave me a close defeat in autoresolve, decided I didn't want to bother with that and alt-F4'd the game.

Then I started Space Engineers and looked through some of the scenarios to find one that seemed like it would be good to start with to get back into the game. I picked "Lone Survivor", opened the terminal menu of one of the crates, got overwhelmed by the amount of information available and alt+F4'd again.

With still no better idea of what to play, I just started Warhammer 3 again and played through the battle, winning it fairly easily. I mopped up two minor factions, then got Skarbrand back just in time to lure N'kari into attacking him instead of my settlement. The auto-resolve gave me a pyrrhic victory without losing any units, which was fine by me.

Luckily I saw N'kari coming for me right before I declared war on a Nurgle faction, so now I can just focus on eliminating him while I get ready for the first portals to the chaos realms to open up (finally).

Anyway, the entire experience just made me realise again that I much prefer being able to just dive into a game, preferably playing multiple hours a day, instead of playing only an hour or two every few days. There's a bunch of games I just cannot get into if I can only play them for a little bit every so often. But games that are easier to get into often get boring quickly.

Our cat passed over the weekend, we are sad to see our Dink go . He would sit with us when we played games etc. like cute cats do. He was 16. Adopted him when he was 1 or so and had 1 eye. We also have a dog that is elderly and going to pass soon so its been rough already, this was unexpected, though he was old, he just passed suddenly. RIP

I'm sorry for your loss

 

[ZedClampet]

My games are all running together. I just opened House Flipper and was standing in the front yard of a house when suddenly I thought, "Oh $hit! Oxygen!" and started running toward the house. To my credit, I only ran a few feet before realizing I'd lost my mind.

Speaking of House Flipper, I think I got it figured out.

$443k profit on a house that cost me $295k is pretty solid.

I've got so much money after the last few houses that I'm going to have fun with some mods and start putting casinos, arcades and game rooms into some of the larger houses. I may not even make a profit on them. No house buyers want a casino in their attic. Actually, there are a couple that would like an arcade or game room, but they don't have a lot of money You have to make reasonable houses for them. Doesn't matter, though. I'll have fun making them, and I can eat a loss or two. May even put indoor pools in with a tropical jungle theme. Casino, arcade, man cave, game room, tropical themed indoor pool with sauna, one bedroom, one bathroom...sounds like my bachelor dream home.

 

[Zloth]

There's at least one similar mission in the very early game, but the damage is kind of irrelevant because you don't have a team yet, and the enemy may not even deploy a mech. Not sure. I think you were trying to defend an outpost, and the amount of damage it could endure was limited. I seem to remember accidentally crashing into a building. The controls were really hard for me at first.

Yeah, I think the opening series of missions has you defend a little outpost from tanks and helicopters. There are bigger defense missions, too, as well as missions where you need to destroy a city.

The whole torso-one-way-legs-another thing is really rough for the first hour or so. It's nice after that, though! It's a lot easier to circle-strafe in a machine designed to do it!

 

[Pifanjr]

Continued my Warhammer 3 Skarbrand campaign yesterday. I went through Slaanesh' chaos realm hoping to get a legendary item once I got to the bottom, but just got 75k and a bunch of decent equipment. The gift before that was 5 immediate level ups for all my lords and heroes and giving 20 extra levels to any new lords and heroes for 10 turns, which would've probably been way better, but I didn't feel like reloading the save.

Once I exited the chaos realm I used the rift to teleport Skarbrand towards the East side of my empire to deal with Ku'Gath who had already taken two of my settlements there. A blood host army stayed behind to deal with the last of N'Kari's settlements. However, after taking the last one his faction was still not defeated. A couple of turns later he was suddenly back with a 20 unit stack, so I'm guessing he was still in the chaos realms and popped out a few turns later. So I had to use a significant chunk of the 75k I just got to raise a bunch of armies to stop him. I went to bad far too late because I wanted him dead before stopping.

This morning I continued my massacre of Ku'Gath's settlements, using Skarbrand to sack as many of them in a turn as possible and a secondary army to raze them all to the ground afterwards. However, Skarbrand has so many campaign movement bonuses that by the time the second army shows up the garrison is at full strength again. Meanwhile there's 1.5 stacks of Norscans sailing for my Western cities, so I'm scrambling to get the armies I raised to kill N'Kari over there before they can do much damage.

I still have to do Skarbrand's quest battle as well, but I don't have time to upgrade his army. Though I might just try again to see if Skarbrand can now solo most of it, as I've unlocked every combat related skill now and his equipment is a lot better.

What kind of garden competition gives you $200k?

 

[WoodenSaucer]

Last night I had a good chance to continue on with AC: Odyssey, and I think I'll have time to play more today. It's really a top notch game. I can't believe how much there is to do in it.

 

[ZedClampet]

What kind of garden competition gives you $200k?

One that costs $14.99 as part of a DLC they REALLY want you to buy. The extra cash is a pretty good incentive if you enjoy the game. But there were other things in the DLC. Basically had a whole story with a bunch of new houses and missions that were voiced by people from HGTV. Being late to the party, I got it on sale for $5.99.

However, it's not supposed to be easy to get that big of a bonus. There are different types of gardens and it's almost impossible to guess the formula. Naturally players did, though, and put up guides on how to get max bonus. It still isn't easy. You can spend an hour doing nothing but the garden. I've gotten lazy with it. I only got a 37.5 percent bonus when the max was 50 percent, but I only spent 10 minutes on the garden.

 

[ipman]

( @DXCHASE cats certainly know how to look cute don't they, sad news. After all our recent cat chat, I'm going to get another cat. We once got a cat from a clown who lived in a caravan and another cat I had was called DEVO. )

Sorry wrong thread. I think I realise why certain books, films and games appeal to me, it's because in I can never predict which direction they will take.

SofW, I sent two captains to wack another enemy captain, straightforward enough usually. Two other enemy captains turn up as well, so I go to protect, then a massively high level captain turns up behind me with my bodygurad, slices my bodyguards throat, which is basically an ambush because when I go to save my bodyguard the high level tries to wack me.
I love it! Nemisis you will be my well nemesis.

 

[Ryzengang]

I started playing Slime Rancher over the weekend, and it's a pretty fun little game. I got it for $5 during the Steam winter sale and there's a good amount of meat to this game, especially for the price. I did try starting up Brutal Legend over the weekend as well, but I dropped that after an hour or so. There was a lot I liked about it, but at the end of the day the gameplay (mechanically) just felt dated and wasn't fun. Last game I've started recently is Lost in Random, a neat EA Originals game (It Takes Two was an EA Originals game as well, which was my 2021 GOTY) with a really nice art style. Super early on so I don't have much to say on it yet, but it is a great looking game in terms of art/graphics.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

I started playing Slime Rancher over the weekend, and it's a pretty fun little game. I got it for $5 during the Steam winter sale...

I got it for free once quite a while ago. I just couldn't get into it.

 

[Frindis]

Starting playing Stabound again. Fun exploration game with a lot of possibilities when it comes to building your own base, setting up a colony, farming, pet-owning, and just about everything else. Not tried any mods yet, but I hear Frackin' Universe is supposed to be one of the better.

My newly upgraded ship and my character (I'm the one with the carrot stick)

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Signed up for EA Play Pro to get access to this for 14.99.

Bargain!

Games great so far, already starting to see the differences in level design that werent obvious from the gameplay video from a while back. All still feels familiar, controls great on M+K. Played around and lowered a couple of settings to high, using FSR2.0 set to Quality and getting smooth gameplay. Some hitching when opening doors, but I assume its loading or something as its smooth after that.

 

[Ryzengang]

I got it for free once quite a while ago. I just couldn't get into it.

Yea, I almost bounced off it around an hour in or so. I think you either get grabbed by upgrading stuff/progression or you don't. The basic gameplay is fair simplistic so it's pretty much about investment in the progression systems and building stuff.

 

[ZedClampet]

I...AM...FREE!!!

In Astroneer, I crafted the portable oxygenator. Put that on my backpack along with a QT-RTG (a portable, perpetual power source), and I no longer have to worry about oxygen.

 

[ZedClampet]

The only thing that's ticking me off about Astroneer is that the saves are unreliable, and it doesn't create backups, so I'm having to constantly do it myself.

 

[McStabStab]

I see there's some Dead Space talk here so I'll jump in:

I remember watching the gameplay trailers and the devs talking about having to reroute power from lights or life support in order to access whatever you need to get to. I thought, "psh why would you go through the annoyance of having to find oxygen stations, just go lights off and get on with it!"

Well I guess I'm not as fear-proof as I expected cause in the refueling bay I had that option, waffled a bit, then said forget it I'm turning off the O2 cause there's no way in hell I'm doing this with the lights off.