Games That Don’t Have a Thread Catch-All

Chained Echoes just came out today. Included with Game Pass. Looks great and I'd be jumping on it right away if I didn't just pick up Xenoblade Chronicles 3. Plus the buttons are not remappable and they're opposite of XC3.

A trusted streamer, Wanderbots, thinks it is even better than expected after kickstarting and playing the recent demo:

Some more NFS Unbound thoughts since I've been playing it:

The racing and car handling is goooooood. Again, abandon your notions of how real cars work, cars drive in this more like how cars drive in dreams. But drifting around corners is just fun and satisfying.

Single player is solid. 8/10. My only complaint is there's a few too many cops for my tastes. I like how difficult it is, honestly; it's a departure from most arcade racing games.

Multiplayer is like, 5/10, just because of missing features. The races are exciting but that's all there is, racing your buddies over and over again. I'm frustrated because the content that isn't missing is really good, but we don't have any guarantee on future patches or support.

Started playing High On Life (thanks Game Pass Ultimate!). Only about an hour in but it reminds me of old LucasArts games mixed with some Pixar visuals and adult humor in a shooter. This might be a fun time; we shall see.

Spoiler:

If you are a Rick and Morty fan, you might want to make sure you finished this season before you play. Justin's voices can break the immersion a bit if you know what I mean.

*EDIT*
I could not look away from Tammy and the T-Rex...

Sailing Era

10% off, just released, appears to be a Chinese developer. The artwork really looks nice, almost anime-inspired I would call it. Looks like it's got ship/fleet battles similar to Sid Meier's Pirates! Gold??

Bfgp wrote:

Sailing Era

10% off, just released, appears to be a Chinese developer. The artwork really looks nice, almost anime-inspired I would call it. Looks like it's got ship/fleet battles similar to Sid Meier's Pirates! Gold??

Well that looks terrific. Thank you!

Bfgp wrote:

Sailing Era

10% off, just released, appears to be a Chinese developer. The artwork really looks nice, almost anime-inspired I would call it. Looks like it's got ship/fleet battles similar to Sid Meier's Pirates! Gold??

Saw this earlier, looks interesting. Gonna have to try the demo when I have time.

Bfgp wrote:

Sailing Era

10% off, just released, appears to be a Chinese developer. The artwork really looks nice, almost anime-inspired I would call it. Looks like it's got ship/fleet battles similar to Sid Meier's Pirates! Gold??

Looks cool, added to wishlist!

Steam Discovery Queue working as intended!

For around $25 it looks like a bargain if it can scratch that old Pirates! Gold itch. I haven't got much planned this weekend so I'll probably jump right in and skip the demo.

Fair warning though, it just released and apparently some of the English translation is incomplete. I read somewhere it's a Bilibili game (they're huge in China) so I'm confident if it gets enough attention in international sales they'll buckle down and polish the game.

For those that played the Pirates! game, remember how exciting it was to guess who was flying which flag, apply Sid Meier's 1990s anti-piracy manual, then research the location of the Spanish silver train and golden galleons?! Working from your little barque, taking your first Dutch merchantman, to praying your overcrowded 120-crew would hold out long enough for you to duel a Spanish galleon captain into surrender.

My Time at Sandrock is doing a Multiplayer Open Beta thing for the next few days. Trying to start it up is when I learned that Pathea Games is based in China and that to join I have to agree a whole bunch of things that are probably innocuous, but gave me enough pause that I opted out. Freaking International Tensions and stuff.

Honestly can't decide if Mortal Shell is brilliant or awful.

It's my usual response to the Soulslike design philosophy of "we're going to make you replay this section a bajiionty times until you're perfect at it".

To add insult to injury, some genius decided that it would be good to have no map and make all of the first area the same shade of green.

Jonman wrote:

Honestly can't decide if Mortal Shell is brilliant or awful.

It's my usual response to the Soulslike design philosophy of "we're going to make you replay this section a bajiionty times until you're perfect at it".

To add insult to injury, some genius decided that it would be good to have no map and make all of the first area the same shade of green.

I was in the same camp on that. I played it a while back during a lull and got a few fights away from the end of the game and just stopped. Always felt it was missing that little something to push it over into goodness.

I am watching a playthrough of Solasta: Crown of the Magister (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...)

And for the first time I saw an explanation of how they sell all the crap you get in a dungeon. There is a part in the early game where you meet a trader who says that if you draw them a good map after you clear out a dungeon they will go pick up all the junk and sell it for you - for a cut.
It is the first time a remember a game offering some kind of explanation of how you can get the gold for 30 shields, 25 swords, etc. from a dungeon. It doesn't make sense that you could carry it back and some games just offer a click on something and instantly sell but this at least tries to make a story reason.

Guys quick question....I got the HOT WHEELS unleashed for the Switch on Physical. and no matter what I do... the game wont update keeps giving me an error. Any ideas of what might I be able to do?

Return it to the store?

I was able to install the game on my switch lite.. but not on my sons OLED SWITCH

Been playing The Crystal Project on my new Steam Deck.

Only a couple hours in, but what a nice relaxing experience. Not much in the way of story, but the systems are well designed and the interface does a great job of surfacing all the information you need without overwhelming you.

The visual style nails that 2DHD "what if we took 16-bit sprites and filmed them during Golden Hour" aesthetic, the enemy sprites are gorgeous, the music's fantastic, and everything is very snappy, no loading screens.

As someone who often finds job systems needlessly obtuse, so far this feels very organic and intuitive without feeling dumbed down. All the complexity is right there.

Looks cool. Of course I need another game like I need a hole in the head so I am just adding to the wishlist for now.

Ive been playing a game this week that never got much love: Per Aspera. It's 'yet another game about terraforming mars' but this one might be the most ambitious of the bunch, and pulls it off nicely. You literally tinker with the entire planet, with your main view being one that lets you zoom out from orbit all the way in to little craters.

You'll use drones to build resource gathering buildings, factories, colonies for humans. Except for the story you dont have to interact with the humans much, they're just a number that provides research points, which lets you focus on the hard work. Melting ice, crashing asteroids, watching the water level rise, raising air pressure and ensuring the right balance of elements in it, growing lychen and cyanobacteria, then plants and animals.

With all the DLC (1 paid for about $5 and 2 free) you have the whole planet to work with, including boats and offshore platforms.

I'm on about hour 6-8 of playing after letting it simmer for a few years and I'm looking at a blue and green planet with some big chunks of red where the air and soil are currently too dry. I'm near the end of the story and it looks like I'll be let loose from the occasional dialog interruptions to unlock the last few areas of the planet (controlled by software lockouts, you're an AI) just trying to dial in the right mix of chemicals in the air and fix the lack of a magnetosphere, then I'll accomplish what a lot of games abstract, actually completely terraforming mars.

The Dead Space Remake released yesterday. It's been getting glowing reviews from major outlets and content creators. If you are curious about jumping in I would caution against the Steam version. I slightly exceed the recommended PC requirements and still found myself running DLSS Ultra Performance on "auto" graphical detail to only get a wobbly 45-ish fps with frequent frame hitching. The game for whatever reason also doesn't play nice with OBS.

I've found most reviews so far are glossing over the technical issues. Thankfully I clocked 111 minutes into the Steam version before getting my refund. Going to see how if the XSX version fairs any better.

This appears to the be correct place to post about The Order 1886.

A casual mention by theharpomarxist on another thread reminded me of the games existence, so I picked it up last week. I've only reached Chapter 2, but IGN's review from 2015 feels spot on.

"Even more than its secret battle against the monsters of legend, The Order’s greatest struggle is ultimately its own internal tug-of-war between telling a beautifully presented story and granting the level of interactivity we've come to expect from a game. In the end, a lopsided commitment to perfecting style and plot comes at the cost of sluggish pacing, a look-but-don't-touch world, and paint-by-numbers gunplay."

If played as an action game, then The Order 1886 is deeply frustrating. So frustrating that I wonder how the game made it beyond the prototype stage. "Surely.", I think, "Surely, someone in authority played a demo of this and saw how wide of the mark it was."

Combat is a mixed of cover-shooting, with occasional Quick-Time-Events. The cover-shooting is horribly hampered by the presence of a cinematic letter-box on the screen. The in-combat QTEs seem a bit shonky. In one early encounter, hitting the prompt enabled me to dodge an attack... but completely lose orientation and therefore sight of the enemy, who then got a free attack on me from behind.

And yet... Then I wonder whether it's really an action game at all. As I've posted on other threads, I'm back on the PS Vita again, and I'm dabbling in visual novels. And The Order 1886 makes more sense a visual novel, than as an action game. First, even 8 years after release, it is lovely to look at. Second, it is telling a cracking story. I really, really want to know why I found Sir Galahad where I found him at the start of the game. The only thing missing so far are options for the player to influence the course of the story.

In the last couple of years, there's been speculation about a sequel to The Order. (Mostly sparked by Sony's renewal of its trademark.) I'm enjoying the original enough to know that I'd be up for a sequel. But I think it would need to embrace its visual novel-ness, and add more player dialogue and story choices.

And I'd also like an optional second story making more use of the World would be nice too. It's a sumptuous to look at, but offers almost no opportunities to interact. An opportunity missed.

Hifi Rush knocks it out of the park, and Ghostwire Tokyo made my GOTY list lay year, so I've suddenly realized that Tango Gameworks is a developer to watch.

Looking at Shinji Mikami's (the founder of the studio) list of games he's directed and produced over the years, it's a big ole pile of games that are style-forward and feature tightly choreographed action.

Undisputed has just launched in Early Access. It's basically an indie take on a modern version of Fight Night Champion. Given that EA has basically abandoned the Fight Night series, and doesn't put the UFC games on PC, I'm pretty happy to see this!
Features are thin on the ground at the moment and some parts are a little rough around the edges, but the main thing i.e the boxing, is very good. Also somehow has a pretty impressive roster so far.

I've been waiting for Undisputed to come out for so long. I'm so glad they changed the name from the original, Esports Boxing Club, which was the absolute worst. Undisputed is a perfect name for a boxing game.

This has been #1 on my Steam wish list for a long time (and that wish list is like 400 items long). I was a big Fight Night fan.

I really, really, REALLY hope it runs decently on Steam Deck.

EDIT: Sounds like it's a bit chuggy on Steam Deck, but the developers are going to look into improvements:

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/3JIok56.jpg)

Having fired it up on one of my home PCs with an RTX 3070, I can confidently say that the entire game needs a performance once-over. But it's Early Access so that's to be expected.

SpellForce Conquest of Eo

This is honestly a nice little 4x games. Has a bit of stellaris in that there's text adventures with decisions everywhere. Alongside some unique mechanics for crafting, or summoning depending on your class. That and you have to constantly move your main base to keep getting resources. While not trying to piss of your rather powerful neighbors. Only wish the map was a bit smaller as getting around is a pain. And the auto resolves is pretty basic. Not taking into account abilities that much.

I’ve been playing Monster Sanctuary, and put maybe like 5 hours into it. It’s a monster collector and a metroidvania. The metroidvania portion is fine; you do some light jumping and switch puzzles, and get a few more abilities periodically. The monsters have abilities that help with traversal or unlocking secrets (so the fire guys set fires that can light torches or burn vines, the physical hitters have tackle which can break walls, the birds and spirits have a float ability that gives you a bit extra horizontal range on your jumps, etc. Most of these aren’t strictly necessary to proceed in the game (I suppose they had to balance it since they couldn’t know who you are going to have in your team at any given time), but it like a more interesting version of HMs in the old Pokemon games. I make sure to always have a floater, though

It has a legitimately interesting battle system, based on elemental damage but a lot of status effects, buffs, debuffs, and combinations therein. Like I have one guy who has a big multihit fire attack, and can each hit can cause burn, and can stack up to three burns. Also, when he attacks he puts a small shield around himself and a fraction of that around his allies. Which is good for just preventing some damage, but another monster has a passive that allows all allies do 10 % more damage when they have a shield around them. The whole point of the game seems to be about managing these combos in 3v3 (or 6v6) battles, and they’re probably the best part of the game. Like, there are some really interesting things to do and consider when battling, but also when speccing out your team (oh yeah, everyone has 3-4 skill trees to choose from). It’s a game where raw damage doesn’t seem to be the point, and so you have to play pretty smart when building a team. I haven’t lost any battles yet, but a couple of the 6v6 fights against enemy tamers have been pretty challenging affairs.

I don’t know how challenging/interesting it will be by the end once you have more options (like, I assume you can just break the game at some point), but so far it’s a gem.

Where is the Hogwart's Legacy thread?

Balthezor wrote:

Where is the Hogwart's Legacy thread?

Banned for bigotry

Stele wrote:
Balthezor wrote:

Where is the Hogwart's Legacy thread?

Banned for bigotry

Oh ok. Had no idea that the game is filled with bigotry.

Lots of good people worked on that game. Started playing today. Awesome so far. Wife who is a big Harry Potter fan who is not a gamer really enjoyed watching me play.

Balthezor wrote:

Oh ok. Had no idea that the game is filled with bigotry.

Lots of good people worked on that game. Started playing today. Awesome so far. Wife who is a big Harry Potter fan who is not a gamer really enjoyed watching me play.

It's a contentious topic, but so you're not left in the dark, the bumper sticker version is that JK Rowling holds various bigoted views and some feel the game should be boycotted for its association with her (if not necessarily for any specific piece of content in the game).

Though that said, there have been catch-all threads for games with similar situations before, so if discussion stays civil and on-topic I imagine folks would be okay with one here.

(edit: and hopefully it goes without saying that this wouldn't be the spot to debate the boycott part again )