I've been hooked on Moonring.
It makes me look back at really old cRPGs and remember what made them so compelling, and it has all of the QoL upgrades and game systems of the past 40 or so years to inform the design.
Also it's free. So, so good.
Working through Cyberpunk & DLC and Lords of the Fallen (2023). Cyberpunk is probably the most beautiful game I've played with the path tracing updates. LOTF is a pretty competent souls clone. Got some interesting ideas. I hope they continue to patch it as quickly as they are to bring it up to par.
Having something of a bumper week (yay for annual leave).
I've played (and finished) Supbar Pool and Strange Horticulture
Subpar Pool is a golf/pool mashup that is super fun, and SH scratches an itch that I didn't realise i needed to scratch.
Mostly finishing Skyward Sword HD on Hero mode. I just finished the last Silent Realm, and now I'm going through the final dungeon. I got all of the pieces of heart this time, so it'll feel like a real completion (got the secret shield and all gratitude crystals in regular mode).
Other than that, I finished most of Human Resource Machine last weekend, so I'll probably finish the last level of that (sorting). I'm a SW engineer, so none of it was particularly hard, but I enjoyed the challenge of optimizing for speed and number of commands. I left the last one because I knew it would take a while. I'm excited to start on Zachtronics games soon (have Opus Magnum waiting for me).
I'm going to pick up two Humble Bundles soon (Fights, Frights, and Fantasy and Fright of Your Life), so I'll pick one of those games to play next.
I seem to have hit the sweet spot with The Outer Worlds after bouncing off it several times since launch. Started a playthrough as a character that accidentally looks like Paul Rudd. Time to roleplay this bad boy as a chat tree master that loves the long guns.
Spending the time to talk to more characters and see the expanded dialogue trees is really tickling that mid-00's obsidian vibe and I am digging it.
Combat is still meh, but a little bit of cheat engine and infinite "time dilation" makes it interesting. The physics get really floaty when you start trying to 360 no scope dudes with a double barrel shotgun, plays like a less refined F.E.A.R.
Overall I'm glad I finally found the groove with this game. I have similar issues with Prey 2017 and keep going back every few moths hoping it will catch me. Dishonored saw a lot of my gaming time when it came out but that one just isn't doing it yet. Maybe it'll be next week's game!
I've been really into Astroneer and Lords of the Fallen. Astroneer hits that base builder/exploring itch and its super chill atmosphere is just great. Lords of the Fallen, its great in many ways. Though there are many "my first game" vibes. Your player 2 being teleported to you, good idea but bad in practice, no HUD indicators for other players, and whatever is going on with the level design makes me feel like I'm lost under the covers. I do like it a lot, and the patches helped, but there are some poor choices in there.
I've been going back through Borderlands 2. Lack of convenient* fast travel and AI issues have not aged well, but overall it is fun.
*yes, it has fast travel stations but sometimes far away. The same with vehicle stations. Sometimes you are just running around.
I picked up a 4-pack of Terraria and been enjoying it a lot. I never played Minecraft but I understand it's basically the same thing. I only picked it up to support the devs, no microtransactions and 12 years of updates for free. But it's a fun game so far.
Came back to Dark Souls 1 after finishing up armored core. I'm always fascinated by how little time it takes for those crunchy old graphics look normal.