What VIDEO GAME(s) have you been playing?

Titanfall 2 is a fucking awesome game, all around.

Best game of the generation to me, up there with maybe only... Bloodborne? I'm trying to think of anything else.

The combination in multiplayer of the dexterity of the pilots and the firepower of the Titans is chef's kiss.

Yea Titanfall 2 was top notch. I played soooo much of the multiplayer. The pve mode they came out with was fun too, though it was hard to get a good game together with random.

I was absolute horseshit on foot but tended to be a high scoring player in the Titan, particularly in support chipping Titans down with the railgun titan.

Last night I felt like trying something new, so I installed the original Deus Ex, with some mods to up the resolution. I had tried it once before but because that time was unmodded the screen was unbelievably dark, and stealth is already something that makes me pretty tense in games, so I didn't even make it out of the training. The mods I installed fixed that problem though, so I put in an hour or two last night.

I just started scratching the surface of the Liberty Island level, and it's tough as nails. All these big open areas where there's no place to hide does not make stealth easy.

I have an enormous respect for the folks at Looking Glass and I've actually got all of there immersive sims through ultra cheap GOG sales, so I'll keep trying at it. But they are not the sort of games that show you how to play, and there's definitely a barrier to entry.

Keep at it. The original Deus Ex is probably a top 10 all time PC game for me. Maybe top 10 any platform.

I got a win!

Spent like 3 comic hours dragging a drilling rig on a flat bed to a drilling site in Snowrunner. Flipped the truck, flatbed and rig three times, brought multiple cranes in to recover it, etc.

Just the final boss this time, but this One Step From Eden deck got totally ridiculous. I had so many spells it was lagging the game. Started off the run with a relic that put jams into my deck (dead spells that cost 2 man to cast and do nothing, and which consume themselves when cast), some lasers that also put jams into my deck, and a spell that fires shots based on how many jams are in my deck. Then got a relic that made my jams give shield when you cast them, which was all nice. Then I got a relic that gave me a kunai every time I get hit (kunai is a 0 mana cost spell that shoots a knife, and the spell consumes itself), and a spell called Deck Slam that does 10 damage for every spell in your deck. The crowning piece is a spell called Scavenge, that puts a kunai in the deck for every spell consumed so far in a battle. So by the end of this final boss fight I was up to like 250 spells in my deck from consuming kunais and jams and then Scavenging ever more kunais to consume. It was fun, though as you can see I'm pretty bad at that boss and only barely squeaked through.




ALSO! The big 2.2 patch finally dropped for Stellaris on console, so I definitely need to redownload and learn all that crazy new stuff.

If it's the one that changes the way population is handled, you now are on your way to the Stellaris Good Shit experience.

My initial report on Phantom: Covert Ops, which released today on Oculus Quest. This is a Metal Gear Solid-ish game in which you infiltrate a base in a kayak. The rowing is extremely convincing, and everything works as you expect it to work.

I think the game is really cool, and I wish I could play it for longer periods of time, but even though you are sitting down the whole time, and gently rowing, it still makes me feel a bit weird in the stomach.

I played SnowRunner for a bit. Drove around in the classic American pick-up then got the bigger truck and drove that a little. Then quit because SR just feels like every other driving game I've played. It's prettier to look at than MudRunner but loses all of MR's charm. I went back to that and was in a dreary bog at night in a giant Russian truck with bad handling and tractor-sized tires for tires. It was better.

Yeah, Alaska and Russia have more of that vibe, it's just hard to get those dumb huge vehicles. I'm not sure the vehicle costs are calibrated well, I'm still mainly using one work horse american truck as my offroad and deliver vehicle and I'm pretty far into the game.

Borderlands 3 is on sale for $15 at best buy this week, which seems like an okay price for Borderland 2.3: More of Exactly The Same Thing. Figure it will be something nice and brainless to sink some hours into.

I finished the main campaign of Bioshock 2 last night. I would say in terms of game design it's stronger than the first one. The levels are more consistent and are better done on average, and the extra combat possibilities felt well-realized. The story was a grower, but I liked its focus on how we demonstrate the world to next generation.

The most obvious place the first game wins is in atmosphere. Frankly the second one did frighten me on the same level as the first, even though it has plenty of mood to go around.
Anyway, it was great. I've already started on the Minerva's Den dlc, and that's fun too.