Also playing some Avowed. I was kinda sceptical after Outer Worlds but it is way better in every way so far!

I finished Final Fantasy 7. Compared to Remake or Rebirth this thing just moves, and doesn’t constantly waste your time. However, that also leaves little time for character interaction or development, so that’s where the new games are much better.

Next was Mushroom 11. I played it about halfway almost 10 years ago, and finally decided to go back and finish it. This is a game, where you control some mushroom blob, by erasing parts, causing it to regrow somewhere else, e.g. you erase the backside, and the blob regrows in the front, which makes you move forward. The first three levels are great, but the four levels after that, sometimes require precision, that the game just isn’t build for. I still like the concept, but it really can be frustrating.

Then I started playing through Final Doom’s TNT: Evilution episode. It took me a bit to get my FPS legs back and the first half dozen or so levels were a bit rough, but nothing too bad. I’m playing on Ultra-Violence and with a Pistol Start, so a lot of times, I have to re-play the beginning a couple of times, to get oriented, and look for weapons, while the game just throws Shotgunners and Chaingunners at you to shred you.

Lastly, I returned to Final Fantasy III (Pixel Remaster). The game is basically a bigger and improved FF1, with most of the changes in FF2 removed, for the better I think. The characters are back to being a cardboard cutout though, just like FF1. That’s the one thing FF2 did really well, compared to these first games.

I shopped around gog and found xiii, street racing stndicate, underrail and alan wake. I started ubderrail and ive been getting clobbered by everyone but its fun. I play it on deck and pc, using heroic to sync saves.

Been enjoying the alpha of project CW. love me a high energy tank game. Sad it’s ending today

Just finished Mafia 1 DE and 2 DE. Taking a breather before I dive in 3, which I suppose will require a lot of patience.

I really enjoyed 1 and 2. They’re anti GTA in some senses where there’s basically little to no fluff or sandbox, just pure story telling and some gameplay on the side. But the stories are definitely so well written. The DLCs of 2 showed signs of GTAfication, and the first 30 mins of 3 also reek of it, but I feel the first two definitely feel timeless only because of their writing.

I was playing Project Zomboid because my friends were playing. Turns out they were just waiting for a Star Citizen patch and abandoned PZ when the patch dropped.

I won’t play Star Citizen until they fix optimization issues. Right now it’s a buggy mess with 8 to 10fps.

7 days to die on Xbox also Call of Duty DMZ.

I created a new character in The Sims 4 to try out the last couple expansion packs.

Maybe some Split Fiction later.

I went retro this weekend:

City of Heroes! It was fun running a mastermind again for a bit.

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. The opening scene where Snake jumps onto the ship is still killer after all these years.

Like a dragon pirate yakuza

Any rgg game is a game I buy. It’s dumb but I love them, especially the action ones where you actually fight (versus the more persona combat oriented ones like 7 and 8). This one is not exceptionally good but the boat parts at least add something new. It’s not bad at all (so far, I’m only a few hours in) but tbh if you don’t like these games you won’t suddenly like this one and if you’re new to the series this definitely isn’t the jump in point

Bloons Tower Defense 6. I’m mildly ashamed but it’s easy to pick up and put down when I’m busy. I can’t dedicate large blocks of time for gaming anymore

This week I played Xenoblade Chronicles 2 which I started a while ago. Compared to the first one which I did not like at all, both story and gameplay are a huge improvement. I actually am interested in the characters now and the combat is pretty fun, altho I still haven’t had a chance to experiment much with it.

I have however a few minor complaints: the blade gacha is a terrible concept and I can’t understand why it was put in the game; on handheld, performance is generally good but the graphics are ruined by a really strong sharpening filter; Pyra’s outfit is dumb and doesn’t fit the character.

I’m also playing Chants of Sennarr and it’s really good! I especially liked the design of the first three languages. The artstye is also really nice.

I’m back to Trails of Cold Steel 2. It is better than the first one. It still feels a bit like padding but it doesn’t feel as pointless. The game structure doesn’t feel as formulaic and repetitive, there’s less quests and it moves much quicker. The characters also finally look different from eachother, as they are no longer in uniform.

The issues tho are still mostly the same: the combat is a downgrade from the Crossbell game (the orbment system in Cold Steel is basically materia from FF7, instead of the much more interesting previous implementation) and I don’t care about any of these characters as they barely have a personality (I blame this on the social link-style mechanics and bloated cast).

Just got into the pokemon fan game “Pokemon Eclesia” last night, so I’m probably gonna be playing through that demo throughout the week if I don’t get bored of it. Pretty cool game so far, but has a fair bit of swearing.

Otherwise, I was getting back into Gemcraft: Chasing Shadows. Being the idiot I am, I just now found out how to quickly power level. Don’t know how much more if the game is left, let alone how to unlock the higher difficulties, but definitely wanna finish it on the easy difficulty at least once before I die.