Interested to hear your comparison to Civ if you have time when done
Negative reviews made me take HK off my wishlist.
Far Cry 5
I've been on a Far Cry 5 replay last couple of weeks. This time without buddies—apart from quick use to get perk points for their 5-10 kills, and one mission where Addie had to come along—with the main objective of capturing each outpost undetected. Minor objectives of improving my wingsuit and chute control, and also exploring places I haven't been before.
Buddies [For Hire]
Getting a lot more grief from wildlife, without my buddies to warn, engage or scare off. Same with baddies of course, no one else to take some of their fire. Both of which meant had to buff Health much sooner than in previous runs. Boars are a PITA, they travel in 4s!
I'm enjoying it tho, buddy chatter gets old after a while, and I don't miss them getting underfoot too often or changing which KB button they're assigned to when you have 2 active—latter seems to happen with every Fast Travel.
Undetected
Undetected without Boomer to send in and tag everyone has been quite different too, needs a lot more scouting before getting stuck in. I've also had to use explosives much more—almost never used 'em before, as felt OP—to protect my flanks. More luring and care with location of zapping baddies—basically out of sight of others, and hiding some bodies.
It sucks there's no Outpost Master like FC4 has, so I can't retry an outpost I captured but got detected—there were a couple early on while adapting tactics, and before I realized I should get myself killed when detected so I'd get another shot. I also missed the 'Undetected' screenshot once, dang thing only lasts 2-3 seconds!
Exploring
Found lots of spots I hadn't seen in previous plays—there are a lot of places not IDed on the map or part of a mission or quest. Even big places like the Eden's Gate Outreach Center, or a base jump on the southern edge.
As always, I minimize driving, which makes all the difference—on foot you get to enjoy the world and be part of whatever's going on locally, like the couple dancing while their buddy plays guitar and sings for them.
Jewel Match - Snowscapes
Very nice Match 3 I've also been playing for weeks—at level 90 of 100 now. I play in Limited Moves mode which is more interesting for me—no rush, can leave or Alt-Tab anytime—altho when I replay it must be on Hard, Normal is too easy as I end up with loads of moves left over even without using the powerups optimally.
There are 2-4 screens per level, and you often have to release a key on one screen to access another. Play requires a lot of constructing 'super' pieces so you can target other blocked pieces. Later levels can take 30 minutes, so it's one or two per session.
Others
Picross Touch and Pohtzee cruising along as 5-10 min fillers.
Command and Conquer Renegade
Got the C&C Ultimate [17 games] on Steam recently for <$7, since I already had 4 of them there, and decided to try the only FPS in the franchise—I played it thru twice I think back in the day, certainly a lot less than the RTS titles. It was decent back then, fun for me mostly because of its setting in the C&C universe, and got ~75% ratings.
Um… did the first couple of missions, may do another over the weekend—or may not. Just doesn't compare to either of the 2 classics which came out 2 years later, Far Cry and Half Life 2. While I found a
solution to the cursor going AWOL, the controls are still too janky for me and the gameplay is very much lacking any interesting tactical or strategic elements. Basically, go there, on this path, zap that.