What VIDEO GAME(s) have you been playing?

Been playing a lot of Apex Legends since the start of season 7. The new Legend is really great, and I've been playing her almost exclusively.

Tried out The Textorcist since it's free on Epic this week. I enjoy typing games. This one is quite challenging since you have to dodge a lot of bullets while trying to type. I think it's perhaps too difficult to keep my attention.

Also just signed up again for Xbox Game Pass. Been wanting to jump back in for a while. I believe I'll try out a Yakuza game.

the_jake_1973 wrote: I picked up Rogue Galaxy Outlaw and it is pretty great. I think I like the flight model more than SW: Squadrons. That may be mostly in my head because of the static background in SW: Squadrons that doesn't quite give you that feeling of you moving, but it moving around you if that makes any sense.

Also, wicked great soundtrack. Enjoyable voice acting. I brings me back to an old game called Hard Nova, but with a Wing Commander: Privateer mash up.

I wish it were in VR.

I bought Privateer on GoG, and it was pretty painful. So there went $5, but somebody has to help keep Chris Roberts and CD Projekt in money hats I guess.

So then I bought _Rebel_ Galaxy Outlaw . AFAICT with the three hours or so playing it, it's Privateer with a Firefly flavor and a dice and Eight-Ball game added. For me, those are good things.

From my old geezer memories*, Privateer lets you gently dip your toe into its universe, where RGO throws you off the end of the dock. I'm in the first system, and there are more than enough ambushes out there to get your ass shot off if you're not careful (or even if you are). But you get all the fun Privateer things like getting to capture pirates for bounties, or be a pirate and capture crewmen and sell them. There's a storyline, follow it if you want to.

I do like the flight better in RGO than in SW:Squadrons, but that might be because I lean on that Aim button and it does a lot of the chasing for you. If that offends you as a flight sim player, you can just not use it.

* When did Privateer come out? 1993. 27 years ago. Jeez, I'm old.

RGO has the better flight 'feeling' than SW:S. I'm more and more convinced that it is because you do not have the backdrops that you are flying against like in SW:S. Less of a boxed in feeling. Which, in SW:S case, you are in a literal box.

I picked up Valhalla and it is good. Combat is harder than Odyssey and it taking some getting used to for the pacing. Ranged stealth combat still seems king and your arrows always seem to be able to be retrieved from corpses, which I find somewhat odd.

Also, only 3xp for hitting a bird in flight, but 10xp for hitting a deer standing still? C'mon.

I'm sort of finally back in a place where I could do an Assassin's Creed. Last one I binged on was Black Flag. So I may pick this one up, especially if I get a new console.

Gary Sax wrote: I'm sort of finally back in a place where I could do an Assassin's Creed. Last one I binged on was Black Flag. So I may pick this one up, especially if I get a new console.

If you're in the mood for an assassins creed, I recommend Ghost of Tsushima. Its beautiful, and it's fun to play through a samurai movie.

After watching a speed runner go through the entire game on a fresh file in 25 real minutes (17 or so game minutes) on YouTube, I finally jumped on the Hades bandwagon.

It is fun. I am bad at it. ~25 attempts so far and no successful escapes. After playing both Transistor and Pyre recently (and Bastion way back when it came out), I can see their evolution as game makers... Roguelikes are still in, so this makes sense as a way to make a longer game from this dev house. Transistor was surprisingly short, even with the side rooms.

I'm about 45 attempts in (on God Mode!) and I'm only now at a level where I can clear a run with any regularity. It still depends a lot on getting the right combos of boons, but you do always sense your own skill creeping up.

RobertB wrote:

the_jake_1973 wrote:
* When did Privateer come out? 1993. 27 years ago. Jeez, I'm old.

No kidding. I remember when Wing Commander games came out and it was "whelp, time to upgrade memory and figure out how to hack the autoexec.bat and config.sys to get rid of enough stuff so it will play!" Same with the modern flight games like Chuck Yeager and Strike Commander. I dumped hundreds upon hundreds of hours into those games. Or Falcon 3.0 with that 400 page manual.

Kids got no idea what it is like to be able to easily play most any game these days with fancy in game tutorials, help screens, and wiki pages

My favorite flight sim is still the old Battle Of Britain one from Lucasarts. It incorporated planning for raids or defense of the raids and the success was determined by your mission results. That needs to be remastered. There are other BoB games that cover the strategy, but a game that does both is heaven.

I used to play F-117 in CGA. I remember being so stoked for my EGA upgrade.

@Jason10mm - yeah, I had a boot disk that would set up -ems and -xms. Extended vs. Expanded memory. Need this driver, but not that one. And so on. I sure miss that, not.

@the_jake - Battle of Britain was the one of the last games I bought for my old Amiga. It turned out that the old Atari-style eight-switch joysticks absolutely suck for flight sims.

GoG will sell you Wing Commander I, II, and 3 for $10 I think.

As for Rebel Galaxy Online, I found out that unlike all the rest of the ships, you don't get to trade in your Platypus. It shows up as cash, but it's not. The web says every other ship in the game acts like that. Which I guess makes sense, since that ship belongs to Orzo (or whatever his name is).

The game also lets you keep stuff that isn't mounted on your ship in storage, but I didn't find that out until I won a weapon in a game of eight-ball. Heck, I had sold everything off that Platypus, and had to buy it all back after taking a big loss. Now that's some old-school gaming!

More Rebel Galaxy Outlaw, if you're wanting to scratch that space flight sim Privateer/Freelancer itch.

• It's definitely not No Man's Sky or Elite Dangerous. Its universe is definitely Privateer sized.
• Except for a couple of variant ships, every piece of hardware is available in the first few systems you'll visit. You're not going to have to risk your life and fly across the galaxy to get the top-of-the-line weapon a'la Freelancer.
• If you want to get the best equipment in a hurry, mine for it. $$$/hour is much higher in mining than anything else, and you're already starting in a good system for mining.
• AFAICT, unless you pick the highest difficulty level (which turns automatic Aim off), the only difference is how much stuff you start with.
• The music on the radio is okay, not great. I usually leave it on Scorpion Latin for the ambiance. It needs more hard rock, and I'll probably point it to a folder full of my lawn mowing music.
• Everyone says you should use a game controller, but I'm making do with a HOTAS. I really don't like game controllers.

I would be using a HOTAS for the game....more config options. I don't like the LB + thumbpad for target selection. But the game is on Xbox and my HOTAS is on the PS4.

Contraband seems difficult to sell in the starting system.

I've been stung by more than a few ambushes when going to the distress beacons.

I'm getting better at pool.

RGO Galaxy Map

Different systems will evidently buy different types of contraband. Personally, I just leave it there. From what I've read, if the cops start scanning you, then jettison it quick. I know from personal experience that if you don't, your ass is grass.

I very rarely answer distress calls because of the ambushes; never if I'm mining. Too many ambushes. Maybe when I get that fighter put together I'll try it.

There's a video game in some bars, Astro-Smash? It's Asteroids.

I was never good at Asteroids as a kid......still no good. Haven't been able to run the table on anyone yet either, but got close. I finally ponied up for the mining scanner and laser.

Was hoping rebel Galaxy outlaw would be in sale for black Friday, but it doesn't appear to be.