What VIDEO GAME(s) have you been playing?

I have SAYONARA WILD HEARTS in the backlog. I just didn't connect to it when I first saw it (Apple Arcade I think?).

I have been playing LOOP HERO though, which just reeks of indie darling. I like it though--it actually reminds me of M.U.L.E. somehow? Maybe it's the 8-bit graphics? Or the little automated loop of gathering goods?

SPELUNKY 2 and HEARTHSTONE round out my gaming of late.

Speaking of, if anyone wants to "get into Hearthstone" as a great F2P game, coming up is probably the best time. They are introducing Classic Mode, which shrinks the pool of cards tremendously, so you can be playing top tier Classic decks within a week I would guess if Ladder is your bag. Outside of Ladder play, there are the Solo Modes (Dungeon Run was probably the best iOS game of 2017), and Battlegrounds, which require no collection whatsoever. Let me know if you want a coaching/intro session.

My fancy new PC came so I started playing a bunch of games I missed because I didn't want to play them running like dogshit on my PS4. I decided to start with Red Dead 2.

It's completely gorgeous, obviously... but also I've never been so cognizent of why reviewers come off lukewarm on games. It wastes a lot of your time, extremely intentionally, with a sort of faux ludo-realistic deliberateness to everything in a game that isn't *really* realistic at all. Nevertheless, the vistas are already breathtaking, I just got out of the handholdy part and into the proper open world, and the main character isn't someone I hate. So it has been good and also a good fit for my very aimless covid/crushing work environment mood. But I would really be pretty hostile to this game if I played on any sort of clock.

Having a new PC that crushes games is pretty incredible, but the price is incredibly high too so it's hard to be too excited about it since mostly I just feel guilty for spending the money.

I saw that comment a lot regarding RDR2... that it wastes your time. I have no patience for that. I'd play a lot more games if they were a tight 20 hours rather than a bloated 70.

I was a MASSIVE fan of RDR and RDR2, after 20 odd hours, did leave me feeling a bit meh. It is heavily story focused but that story is often doled out as conversation during a forced ride across less appealing terrain than RDR so it does feel like it takes a long time to get nowhere.

Still, it is way better than 95% of other games IMHO, its just that the bar was set so high the sequel pales a bit in comparison.

I finished control, which was real good. A consistently great vibe the whole way through, and fun combat too. The ending was a slight anticlimax, but not badly enough to spoil things I'm doing the dlc, since apparently the free ps+ version came with the dlc, and it's fine. More of the same stuff, basically. One of them ties into alan wake, which is neat. I don't think I really needed more control after finishing the main story and side stuff, but hey it's here so.

God, I have so many thoughts about Red Dead 2, bad and good. So you're going to have to hear about them.

The first is that I'm just past Rockstar's house scumbag/psycho side character style. I've changed, I just have no interest in it. It's so exhausting to just run into side mission characters that fit this mould over and over and over. The main characters (Dutch, Arthur, Hosea, etc) are quite well observed and don't fit this Rockstar house style, but the side characters. No thanks.

The artistry of the open world in this game, though, is just breathtaking. Worth the price of admission alone. It's like... ok so most games have shots that are set up, narrative visual beats. But you can tell that this game had enough artists on it that the open world itself is carefully crafted to mechanically create artistic moments. Like, not like they'll set a mission shot and carefully set you up for it... no, they made the entire world with countless little moments and sightlines which are just incredible and the game truly doesn't care if you see them or not.

In general I'm not one of these indie darling players who wants more walking simulator games or games about talking or whatever, I am somewhat mainstream in my game preferences. Which is why it has sort of shocked me that my favorite activity in RDR is having my binoculars out and studying animals. I'd rather do that than hunt them and skin them and run them back to the butcher etc, to be totally honest, which is what the game would like me to want to do. This game's environments are so good looking and well crafted that I just want to like check off all the animals in some sort of 250 species audubon thing. It's really good.

The only part of RDR1 i 100% enjoyed was wandering the wilderness and just kinda exploring and looking at stuff, so I'm not surprised to hear you say that's the best part of 2. Rockstar pumps so much money into their open worlds, and then I kinda hate the stories and gameplay they put in them.

Was getting a little frustrated with Loop Hero's resource grind, and the GOG Spring sale just started, so I picked up Jupiter Hell. www.gog.com/game/jupiter_hell

This is absolutely turn-based DOOM. It doesn't use the mouse at all, so it would be perfect for laptop play. So far I'm enjoying it, but I am actually still on my first run. I turned down the volume on the constant heavy metal guitar riffs. I also wish there was some camera control. That said, the game is still in development so who knows how it will end up. What is here, is fun.

Jupiter Hell was made by the guy who did DoomRL, an actual Doom roguelike that I sunk approximately 5000 hours into. It was amazing. Unfortunately JH doesn’t run on my decade-old iMac.

Once again, I got bored with Dragon Age: Origins. I did make it a little farther though, so I might pick it up again soon. Same with Mass Effect, although I've actually finished Mass Effect.

I'm playing a lot of Valheim lately. When they say, "Make a spare set of gear just in case," they mean it. I had to make a whole new set from scratch because all my shit was stuck in a burial chamber surrounded by mobs. I've played a couple of this genre before and got bored in a hurry, but I like Valheim.

Octopath Traveler hit Game Pass so I fired that one up. It's a story rich turn based JRPG. Reminds me of Saga Frontier from the day, except instead of having you play each role separately (with their story), they take turns jumping in and out of the main party. It's still kinda freeformish and the game lets you walk into an area that is far, far beyond your party's level. I do wish now that I have a full party I could just focus on the four of them rather than decide who is going to sit out battles.

The other game that hit GamePass on Thursday was the second Pillars of Eternity. They released it on XBOX before PC and it just doesn't work on the couch. I don't know that I'm going to hit it now that it's on PC as well.

With the new season of Formula 1 upon us, I pulled down F1 2020 and started a career. It was nice that I could recruit Hubert for my second driver.

That game has so much you can adjust during the drive, it is staggering. I had my assists set too easy and made pole at the Aussie GP pretty easy. Now I'm bracing from that 58 lap race. woof.

Took a break from achievement hunting in Payday 2 to take a look at what was on sale on my wishlist. Made several purchases, but refunded one.

Bought and played Moon Hunters, which is a procedurally generated fantasy game that takes a page from Avatar: The Last Airbender. You have 5 days to enhance your character, who is a follower of the Moon, to fight against the Sun Cult and their king. Each successive game changes the story of how the heroes prevailed/failed against the Sun Cult. And with each game, you unlock constellations to play new characters and locations, or to replay the previous ones (with some enhancements). Combat is Legend of Zelda-y and simplistic, but the journey from trying to get home to finally facing off against the Sun Cult is satisfying to me. And the soundtrack is downright beautiful.

Picked up and played Final Exam, a side scrolling beat'em up akin to Onikira. Liked what I saw in the tutorial and plan to play more of it.

The one I purchased, and almost immediately refunded was Regular Human Basketball. A silly looking game where two players play basketball with rattletraps mech basketball players. The downside? You must play with 2 players, and the trailer made it look more fun than it actually was. You have to move to different locations in the mech to activate certain parts of the player (picking up the ball, rotating arms and jets to move the ball into position and to jump, respectively.) After playing less than five minutes, I threw up my hands and went to the refund process.

There's a bunch of random free games on the playstation store atm, including Subnautica and Enter the Gungeon. I've been playing some Gungeon, which is fun. Not sure how long I'll stick with it, but it's a good one of those twin stick rogue lights. I can't tell if I care about Subnautica but I downloaded it and it looks potentially neat.

I burned out halfway through the second DLC for Control, which is a shame because I did the one without the cool lore stuff first by accident. I did get the platinum trophy for the base game, and I think the DLC was solid I just didn't need to play it right after playing so much of the base game.

I recently picked up Dark Souls 3 again to try and finish it. It took me a while to get the hang of the combat, having never played DS1 or 2, but after farming the two silver knights at the beginning of Anor Londo it finally started to click. Pontiff Sulyvahn gave me fits but figuring him out is so satisfying. Like so many bosses it comes down to being strategically aggressive without being reckless or overextending. Recognizing the pause before he thrusts with his purple sword doesn't hurt, either. I just finished Archdragon Peak and only have the Storm King boss fight remaining. It takes place in one of those arenas where there isn't a proper floor so I'm sure I'll be disoriented and swearing at the camera in no time.\

My son and I are tag-teaming a new Bloodborne playthrough and we're doing a Threaded Cane build. I don't know why I never tried it sooner; the tricked form has great range and is really good for crowd control (not to mention the damage bonus against beasts), plus it uses hardly any stamina. As much as I'm looking forward to Elden Ring I'm keeping my fingers crossed for Bloodborne 2.