Patient Gamers

I rewarded myself this week with a newer release than what I would normally be drawn to when I saw a game in the bargain bin.

I picked up Guilty Gear -STRIVE- at -30% for the Switch. Where I live, that made it cheaper than on Amazon and cheaper than the digital version has ever been.

I haven't played any fighting game in ages and while I had seen clips of this game, I had never played it or any Arc System Works games (BlazBlu-, Dragon Ball FighterZ) so everything about it is a little knew to me. My fighting game experience is lots of Mortal Kombat and Killer Instinct, some Street Fighter and Darkstalkers, about two hours of Skullgirls, and maybe an hour of Samurai Shodown, Red Earth, and Cyberbots.

My initial impressions are positive. There isn't a soul online to play with, but I'll be working my way through training for quite some time. Graphics are very impressive. Music-wise, it isn't something that I'd ever listen to willingly, but it certainly suits the game and sets it apart from others in the genre.

Mechanics and controls are just right for someone like me, but I don't understand their ranking system for online play. You have to play a match and the system ranks you on that and won't allow you to play ranked matches below your level. Ranking me 6 out of 8 might be generous since I literally just mashed the same button.

I've been playing Tactics Ogre Reborn and just got to act 4 and.... Man I really want to enjoy this game, but it's difficult, and the board is rarely even in a way that's frustrating. For example, casters are clearly stronger than martial units, but they need mp. Pretty typical. But, during combat your units can pick up cards that give buffs like increased mp generation or increased activation of automatic skills (which do things like generate mp, cause buffs/debuffs, one of them fully doubles healing done for the turn). I like the card system, somewhat, because it pressures you to move up as opposed to bottlenecking and defending set points whenever possible. But, once you're a little way into the game, enemy casters come in with four cards, one of increased magic damage, one of increased auto skill proc, two of mp regeneration. Now your casters are weak as shit and need to run to the front lines to get the buffs necessary to cast high level spells more than once every few turns, while the enemy casters are goddamn artillery pieces that can attack from across the entire map. Your martials need to run through artillery fire and break through enemy tanks to target the back line (oops there are skills that tanks have that restrict movement so you have to kill them) and your casters can't cast more than once every handful of turns, and can't consistently benefit from the "your spells have longer range" auto skill, so in some fights you're just beholden to rng of your enemy skills procing and cards you want/need showing up in places your casters can access without ending in a meat grinder.

It's the kind of game I wish I had a friend who had beaten it a couple times to give me advice on. I'm open to looking up builds and strats online, but since it's a remake of a game that was originally on SNES and then PSP, a lot of balance changes have occurred and sometimes you'll find a forum post going on about how good xyz build is, only to later find someone else remarking "oh yeah that worked amazingly on the PSP version but it doesn't work at all anymore"

Doom 3 on the Steam deck. 20 hours so over the average playtime but I keep getting lost 🧭

Victoria 3 , its 3rd year aniversary and it has a nice balkan update , so im playing a bit having some dumb fun

Finally playing through Cyberpunk 2077. It still has some bugs but nothing that prevents me from enjoying it. I picked up the game and dlc like 40% off recently.

Seems like it was worth waiting for, it's actually really fun!

final fantasy 12

Arcanum. (with Drog's patch)

Somehow I've never played it. As a 90s cRPG veteran it is interesting to go fresh into a cRPG and be smacked with a lot of confusion about mechanics and stats that I don't have from games I'm used to playing. It took me a frustratingly long amount of time to figure out how to use the world map travel.

As seems to be a trend with Tim Cain games, the combat isn't very good but the game is carried by the social detail, world, and variety in how to approach quests. I'm going for a social build with a lean towards magic in order to get the most out of social interactions.

Getting back into Schedule 1 after a few months, it's still fun and decently chill to just be a drug dealer for wacky cartoon drug addicts.

I have almost all the properties - all I'm missing is the docks warehouse - I have all possible customers, I'm almost done taking out the rival drug cartel in the game, and I'm still only based out of the barn. I also finally got around to hiring my first few employees so I don't have to constantly be mixing up new shit to sell or give to my dealers. I'm excited to see what else they add to the game (it's still in EA).

After I'm done with that, I'll probably jump back into Abiotic Factor and try to finish the story of that one.

Jump Space

Playing with a mate and it's a lot of fun. It's a new game so not quite "patient gamer" but it's cheap enough that I'm fine with it and looking forward to updates.

Football Manager

It got a hold of me these past couple days. I wanted something chill to do while I drink my coffee but then time just flies by... and it's suddenly 3 hours later :/

just kicked off borderlands 3 over the weekend (it was a freebie on epic a while back).

i can see where they were trying to take the series, but i think they need a "back-to-basics" moment; there were a few decisions that really detract from the ability to be immersed.

(ux)the skill tree system has changed in a way that makes upgrading confusing to the point that i dont even use my special ability (it spawns a mech)

(ui)there are multiple advertisements for DLC that are always on your minimap and block your view of POIs - they look like questgivers

(bug)sometimes fast travel works and sometimes it doesnt (and sometimes it does but doesnt let you travel unless you close and reopen the map)

these 3 issues make it really difficult to enjoy a gaming session without being reminded that i need to spend more money so this convoluted system wont be fixed.

3 days in and i give it a meh 5/10; it seems like the budget was too big.

For The King 2

It's definitely got some issues, especially with camera angles, but my friends and I have been having a good time with it. The campaigns are shockingly short, but that makes it way more doable with friends. We all know coordinating time is difficult

Trying to mod/ROM hack !pokemon@sopuli.xyz Soul Silver, so that also necessitates playtesting that. Never actually fully finished playing the first time around.

You might want to edit the title to Recommendations instead of Recommendstions

Ninja Gaiden Black, actually. I was watching the Combat Overview video on it, and it made me realize I never really gave it a fair shake because I prefer NG2 by a lot.

BTW, if you in any way like action games, do yourself a favor and follow Combat Overview on YT. No one does what this guy has been doing for last couple of years, sadly. It's been my go-to channel for long form breakdowns of action games since matthewmatosis shifted focus to making his game and TGBS moved on from making videos covering action games altogether.

I’m currently playing through Mass Effect Legendary Edition. I’m done with 1 and am now working through 2. Great games so far!

I'm back in skyrim VR but i'm using VRocker that let's me walk or run in place to move in game. It's been pretty fun. :)

I've had Airship: Kingdoms Adrift for a while and gave it a go. It's got neat broadside naval combat in the air and you can customize components in ports. There's a small chance to capture enemy ships under certain conditions and make yourself a fleet or send trade convoys on their own from port to port.

It has a main mission though and kinda acts like a tutorial so, not sure how far along one has to follow it to unlock everything.
Butt the mission rewards are kind of silly. Gave me some warehouse plans to increase port storage, but no idea when I'll get to use it or where, if at all.
Need resources probably, but i didn't get that far and the costs are way above what i can poach.
Then gave me a piece of equipment too big for the ship I have, so again, useless at the moment.

Anyway, feels off. Maybe I'll get back at it, maybe not... Who knows.

I recently started playing Revenge of the Savage Planet. So far I really like it. I've never finished the first release Journey to the Savage Planet, but it was a nice game.

Does No Man's Sky count? I just got it a few weeks ago on sale and have been having a blast!

Just picked up Ark Survival: Evolve and No Man's Sky

Been playing a lot of survival craft games with my son in law lately which has been great fun

Halo 2: Anniversary
The further into the series I get, the less enjoyable my Heroic playthrough becomes. I'm currently doing the first halo mission as the Arbiter and the amount of shotgun-totting floodlings who can one-shot me while running and jumping around like they're on speed is... tiring, to say the least. I actually ended up taking a break for a few days for the first time since I started playing MCC due to this very level. Hopefully I'll be able to start fresh once I'm back.

Other than that I still like the game - not as much as Reach but it's fun for the most part. Gameplay has a nice mix of on-foot and vehicle combat, levels are pretty varied (both visually and in terms of design). New weapons are alright, can't say I like them more than anything I used in other games.
I'm still not sure how I feel about the story, will have to wait until I'm done before I decide on that.

I mentioned it before but boy do I appreciate the presentation when using remastered graphics. All the colour, details and updated art style make the locations look appropriately sci-fi, otherworldly (when needed) and just overall beautiful and pleasant to look at. It's a fantastic upgrade, one that hits even harder if you play like me - constantly switching between the two versions.

I've got another small but annoying problem to mention this week: why does my flashlight turns off randomly? Sometimes it's after a few seconds, other times when moving between the rooms. Either way, it's making it pretty much useless. Why? What possible reason could you have for that? It's not like I'm running out of battery or anything, just let me use it when I want to.