What are you playing this weekend?

Starting up Mass Effect 2 after completing 1 earlier in the week. I'm a little torn about how to approach it though--I feel like I love this game too much to just sit down and play a few hours here and there for the next few months, and instead should find The Perfect Time to have a whole ME2 Experience. But, eh, I'm gonna start it up and see what happens.

Also might play a few rounds of Fortnite? I've gotten all the battlepass things that interested me, but I'm level 92 so part of me feels a compulsion to reach 100? I dunno.

Otherwise I might play some new Game Pass stuff (The Wild at Heart, maybe?) or maybe clear some harddrive space off by finally running through the Avengers DLC so I can feel like I didn't leave anything on the table?

Or maybe I'll just sleep, it's been a rough week.

Had a week of going to the hospital for my son and now the weekend. Slay the spire before bed unless I'm feeling up to it. Claw deck here I come.

JohnKillo wrote:

Had a week of going to the hospital for my son and now the weekend. Slay the spire before bed unless I'm feeling up to it. Claw deck here I come.

I hope he’s ok or at least on the right side of any treatment.

I want to play some more Battlefield: Firestorm but I need to overcome how intimidating I find it. Hopefully I’ll also have time for some Control. More than likely, even though I never seem to recapture the glory of the run when I reached Chamber 4, more Enter the Gungeon.

Playing this game I feel like I can understand gambling addiction a bit more (thankfully, I was irrevocably put off gambling at an early age.) It must feel very similar to go into every new game or bet thinking you will reproduce the big win you had in the past only to fall short over and over. I’m enjoying exploring the ever changing Gungeon but it does feel like there’s that rather troublesome dynamic in the mix there.

MagiCat (Steam)

One look at a screenshot for this $5 (5 dollars Canadian at that) game screams shovelware, but it's surprisingly good. Good level design, colourful graphics, and a SMW-style world map with upgrades and secrets. One neat touch I like about the game is that it does have cutscenes with written dialogue explaining the minimal story, but since all the characters in the game are animals the words are just animal sounds. "Miaw! Maw-meow-meow miaw!" is quite an engaging plot.

Probably chipping away at Act III (post-game) in Dragon Quest XI S, doing a little bit of catching up with Tyranny and The Alliance Alive, and likely some platforming goodness with Super Mario 3D Land on ye olde 2DS.

Hitman (2016)

Not really sure what I’m doing here - feels like the point of the game is to replay levels and experiment, which isn’t really my style. But it’s interesting and well crafted so I will play on and see how it pans out.

Higgledy wrote:
JohnKillo wrote:

Had a week of going to the hospital for my son and now the weekend. Slay the spire before bed unless I'm feeling up to it. Claw deck here I come.

I hope he’s ok or at least on the right side of any treatment.

He is. Went home after he hit his head and perked up after going home.

Mostly Days Gone.

I played and beat Observer. This one really did not click with me. I wanted to like it more than I did. I still have no real idea of what happened and the dream sequences were way too long and ultimately painful. Rutger Hauer's (RIP) voice acting was something else. I remember liking Layers of Fear well enough, but I am not sure if I should give Medium a shot after this experience.

Garth wrote:

I played and beat Observer. This one really did not click with me. I wanted to like it more than I did. I still have no real idea of what happened and the dream sequences were way too long and ultimately painful. Rutger Hauer's (RIP) voice acting was something else. I remember liking Layers of Fear well enough, but I am not sure if I should give Medium a shot after this experience.

Bloober are super hit and miss. I really enjoyed Observer, though it didn't stick the landing. Layers of Fear was fantastic, but the sequel was a huge disappointment for me. I'd like to try The Medium and their Blair Witch game. They seem pretty ambitious, but their writing doesn't always support those ambitions. They'll always be interesting to me, though.

Just beat Mass Effect 1 (even with the upgrades in the Legendary Edition, I am reminded why I do not really love the first game that much... it's a janky game.)

BUT I started up Mass Effect 2 and was reminded why it's such a better game in literally every way (except that I miss inventory management, but I'm weird like that - I like comparing stats.)

I also put in another two runs in Returnal. I cannot get through the third biome, but I unlocked another item that I can find, so... progress?

I also continued to feed my Deep Rock Galactic addiction.

I made the delightful mistake of starting 9th Dawn 3 just before bedtime.

I managed to tear myself away about four hours later.

beanman101283 wrote:
Garth wrote:

I played and beat Observer. This one really did not click with me. I wanted to like it more than I did. I still have no real idea of what happened and the dream sequences were way too long and ultimately painful. Rutger Hauer's (RIP) voice acting was something else. I remember liking Layers of Fear well enough, but I am not sure if I should give Medium a shot after this experience.

Bloober are super hit and miss. I really enjoyed Observer, though it didn't stick the landing. Layers of Fear was fantastic, but the sequel was a huge disappointment for me. I'd like to try The Medium and their Blair Witch game. They seem pretty ambitious, but their writing doesn't always support those ambitions. They'll always be interesting to me, though.

Oh dang, I forgot they did Blair Witch. I was definitely wanting to give that a look too. I keep hoping they would offer it in PSVR since that seems to be the initial experience they were going for. I also played LoF2 and remember being disappointed as well.

I was the opposite - I shrugged off Layers of Fear, but I loved poking around the apartment complex in Observer. The memory exploration did wear a bit thin though.

Anyway, the Elden Ring trailer got me all hornt up for some Fromsoft, so I started up a new Dark Souls 3 character before work this morning. Other than that, it's back to Death Stranding - I picked up the PC version in a weak moment to put my RTX card through the paces.

Persona 5 Royal. I mean, is there anything else? I'm 54 hours in, and I'm roughly halfway through the game, so I'm getting there...

Keeping the Mass Effect train going with ME3.

Kinda lttp but I picked up PC Building Simulator and it's super-fun!

Only a few hours in and I'm finding it totally has that Car Mechanic Simulator vibe going for it. Always thought PCBS was more of a low-effort "joke" game, but like CMS it's got real effort & authenticity put behind it.

Enjoying the troubleshooting aspect where much like real-life you get work-orders from people who have no idea what needs to be fixed, outside of saying "It doesn't work". I'm not the most tech-savvy individual, but troubleshooting really brings that head-scratching puzzle solving energy to the table.

Email requests can be kinda funny too where you get different personality types going off on wild tangents (eg, one dude was saying he needs is rig fixed as he runs a movie-review website and then went on and on about some rando film franchise, nerding out "ackshually"s over different releases in the series).

Kinda amazed how many real parts manufactures got on board with this release (like close to 50 I think?). So all the components are named & modeled after their real-world counterparts. Guess I can finally get my hands on a GTX 3090, just not how I imagined, lol.

I was hoping to make good progress last weekend in The Legend of Heroes: Trails to Azure, but that did not happen. I made some progress in Xenogears though, so that's something. We'll see how this weekend goes!

I’ve stopped playing CONTROL. I was into the combat and the story but I am just not on the same page as Remedy navigation or puzzle wise. With puzzles I never feel like I’d worked out what I was supposed to be doing. Instead I was doing random things that may or may not be the things they want me to do to proceed. After I’d done the puzzle I could see what was intended but I don’t find it a satisfying process.

Navigation wise I’m sure I’m too used to having my hand held both in terms of being given markers and by being set loose in areas that are designed to subtly guide you to your destination so you can’t really get lost. CONTROL’s oldest house feels like it was designed as an actual functional building with service corridors, offices, etc. That’s fantastic but, in practice, I get completely turned around on a regular basis. I’ve lost count of the number of times I thought I’d finally worked out which way I needed to go only to ended up in the gents toilets. I’m sure there are folks reading this who never had much of a problem navigating those spaces but, for whatever reason, I did and to such an extent that it’s sapped all my enthusiasm. Thankfully I can, of course, just stop playing and play something else.

That something else is Subnautica! I got it for free on PS4 so wanted to try it but I was concerned, as it was a survival based craftathon, that it wouldn’t be for me. So far, fingers crossed, it is and I’m getting more into the game as I go.

Higgledy wrote:

I’ve lost count of the number of times I thought I’d finally worked out which way I needed to go only to ended up in the gents toilets. I’m sure there are folks reading this who never had much of a problem navigating those spaces but, for whatever reason, I did and to such an extent that it’s sapped all my enthusiasm. Thankfully I can, of course, just stop playing and play something else.

Control's navigation is a real rough time until you give up on the map and just look at the environmental signposts instead.

Continuing on with Trails to Azure as my main game. Elsewhere, I'm trying to beat one game of Into the Breach for the Strategy game club, and also I put like an hour into Brigador since I wanted to play a stompy mech game and apparently I grabbed this for free at some point. I dig the explodiness, so that's sort of a fun palate cleanser.

Alien Love Gardener wrote:

Control's navigation is a real rough time until you give up on the map and just look at the environmental signposts instead.

I’ll try that if or when I get back to the game. Thanks. As a rambler (hiker) and an ex-scout I’m definitely a map oriented person.

Leveling Dark Knight in Final Fantasy XIV and streaming Disco Elysium. Not sure i'll have time for much else!

Days Gone still. Still really enjoying the game. Gotten to the point in the game where I'm not in much trouble when I get in fights or overwhelmed. The start of the game was really touch-and-go. But now its kinda relaxing playing. Do a few missions and feel like I've accomplished something.

Also may have to check out the new DAF truck in Euro Truck Sim 2.

Ninja Gaiden Sigma from the Master Collection: look forward to playing this on my live stream tonight then working through the rest of the game on- and offline. The PC port is indeed lazy to the max. Luckily, the games within the collection still hold up. Well at least the two that I've actually played so no reason to doubt the third.

Mass Effect from the Legendary Edition: it's remaster trilogy season! I'm done with Feros and plan to hit Virmire after doing that mission for Garrus (and actually remembering to take him with me)

Streets of Rage 4: I've only ever used my fight stick for 1v1 fighters like SF, MK and Tekken. I plugged it in for SoR4 and was blown away by how much better it played versus the regular controller. A real retro arcade experience!

Deep Rock Galactic.

ROCK. AND. STONE.

Rogue Legacy

I actually bought this game back when in came out in 2013, played for about two hours, and never touched it again (according to my steam play history). Eight years later I come back and fall in love. I'm not sure why it didn't grab me the first time, but I'm having a blast now. The gameplay loop is incredibly addictive.

Hoping to make some more progress in Tyranny. I don't think I'll get all the way to having a third spire under my control, but I'd like to be on the way so I can finish that third spire during the week.

And then maybe Into the Breach or Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. I picked up Sekiro in the Days of Play sale and have been dipping my toe in it.

Trying out the 2.2 Slay the Spire patch and maybe dipping into Griftlands too.

Unexpectedly put in 3 hours into Assassin's Creed Odyssey last night. That's the longest session (by far) in well over a year.

Still extremely good!

I want to put some time into my copy of Koudelka, since it's going to be featured on an upcoming podcast I listen to. (The game, unexpectedly, goes for nutso prices on ebay nowadays).

Most of the way through Heavy Rain - hope to make more progress and maybe finish by midweek.