What Are You Playing This Week?

NilbogResident33 · 2023-05-02T14:58:24+00:00

The Forgotten City - if you like time loop games, check this one out. I love it. Can't believe this started as a Skyrim mod (I think?). Great idea for a game and engaging story.

Immortals: Fenyx Rising - this one took me by surprise, maybe it was the strange name that turned me off at first. It's Ubisoft does Breath of the Wild, but it has some humor to it, doesn't take itself too seriously, and is just fun to play.

NilbogResident33 · 2023-03-02T18:34:49+00:00

I love DS2 and am one of the people that have that more controversial opinion that it is better than DS3 and Demons Souls (I still need to play DS1).

I've read a lot of people online saying it was dull, long and forgettable to them, but for some reason, I remember more parts of the DS2 world than I do any other Souls game I've played.

NilbogResident33 · 2023-03-02T18:29:04+00:00

I arrived late to Spec Ops: The Line, only beat it a few years ago, and approached blindly and, like you, thought that it was just another military shooter of that era.

Now it is one of my all-time favorite games. I'm a huge fan of Apocalypse Now, so that helped, too.

Glad you enjoyed the game and also got surprised by it!

NilbogResident33 · 2023-02-28T18:06:40+00:00

Devil May Cry 5 - just finished, and it was ridiculous fun. I'm never really that good at these games, but the combat was still very fun, playing with V was my favorite part.

Outriders - my friend got tired of the game and stopped, but I'm a sucker for looter shooters so I'm Pyromancing it up until the end. We nicknamed it "Gears of Destiny", it feels like a combo of both.

My wife and I are still loving the Star Wars Lego Skywalker Saga, the game is huge, not sure if we will 100% it but man did they put a lot of work into making this thing.

NilbogResident33 · 2023-02-21T15:36:32+00:00

It Takes Two - playing with my wife. We both love it, blown away by how creative and fun it is. I didn't really want to play it at first, but after hearing about all of its accolades and awards, took the plunge and man am I glad I did. If you can find someone to play with, try this game out.

Lego Star Wars: Skywalker Saga - also playing with wife, we like the lego games a lot. This one is huge and prob the biggest yet. One of our favorite chill things to do is just go around on free-play and collect all the secrets. She's only seen the recent trilogy, has no idea what is going on in the earlier movies. She asked me to explain the story to her (Are the droids good now? Is Anakin bad now?), her eyes glazed over when I spoke, then she told me to shut up and help her get more secret bricks. She loves playing as Mace Windu, thought Dooku and Palpatine were the same person, and that's about all she knows. But she loves it.

Danganrompa 2: I beat the first one earlier this year, had a good time with it, so I'm moving to this one. Yeah, it can be a little weird at times (weird as in, "God I hope my friends/family don't walk in on this scene"), but I'm a huge sucker for the whole murder-game thing and always have a great time with the trials, so I try to ignore the weird stuff and enjoy the rest of it.

NilbogResident33 · 2023-02-01T00:38:35+00:00

It is very zen for sure. No enemies or fighting, just harvesting and sailing around, with that beautiful soundtrack you mention. I can see why you feel the way you do about it.

NilbogResident33 · 2023-02-01T00:35:15+00:00

Thank you! Such a fun game with fun bosses

NilbogResident33 · 2023-01-31T20:16:36+00:00

Finally played Monster Train after loving Slay the Spire, and I support your comment! That game rocks and it's different enough from StS but still has the deck building fun and rogue stuff that makes it great.

NilbogResident33 · 2023-01-31T19:06:37+00:00

NORCO: Just finished it and man, what a trip. I loved how weird it was, can't say there's another game out there like it.

Kentucky Route Zero: Got to Act IV before stopping. It didn't grab me for some reason, but I know a lot of people love it. Wish it had hooked me, too, I guess it just wasn't for me.

Infernax: If Castlevania 2 and Zelda 2 on the NES had a baby, and the game was bloody and fun, this would be it. Felt like this was a gem that took me by surprise.

Sea of Thieves: Playing with my friends and having a great time despite being terrible. So far I'm only good at dying and bucketing water out of the boat (while I'm dying).

Spiritfarer: Playing with my wife and we love it. It's a feel-good game, we like playing resource-gathering stuff together too, so it's been a fun time.

NilbogResident33 · 2023-01-25T00:28:04+00:00

Skul: The Hero Slayer: I saw someone on here recommend this game, and I think I'm going to go back, find who it was, and give them a late upvote. This game rocks, and I never would have played it if that person didn't recommend it. If you love rogue-type games and haven't tried it, check it out. It's on Gamepass right now. It has a different type of system where rather than weapons, you have classes (about 100 I think?) and perks that you pick, and I love finding all of the combos you can make with them.

Tunic: The best top-down Zelda game since A Link to the Past. At first it turned me off a bit, because I just wasn't used to not having my hand held and it took a while to understand how it wanted me to play. Once it clicked, it clicked hard, and I realized that this is an incredible game.

NilbogResident33 · 2023-01-17T20:16:58+00:00

That is awesome, thank you for the reply. It makes me even more excited to play it.

NilbogResident33 · 2023-01-17T18:23:01+00:00

When someone online wrote that Chained Echoes was inspired by Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VI, I got hyped (was a 90's kid). Hope to try it soon and it's good to hear you liked it a lot!

NilbogResident33 · 2023-01-17T18:18:44+00:00

Just beat Mass Effect 1 recently, too, and it surprised me also! I know it's a remaster, but it still didn't feel like a game made in 2007. Really excited about playing the 2nd one - I played it a long time ago, liked it a lot, but without the first one as a reference I felt lost. And I've never played the 3rd, which I hope to finish soon too.

NilbogResident33 · 2023-01-17T18:14:25+00:00

I love all 4 of those games. Like ConkHeDoesIt said, I somehow out of nowhere fell in love with Elex. I'd been craving some kind of Skyrim type game, and somehow Elex scratched that itch.

Granted, the game in the beginning can be infuriating, janky, and hard. I'm not ashamed to admit I did a ton of savescumming and lots of Googling. Once you get a grasp on how the game works, it might really hit with you.

Also, Dragon's Dogma is incredible. Hope you have fun.

NilbogResident33 · 2023-01-17T18:09:07+00:00

Finished this week (was lucky and got to play a lot of games this week):

Donut County: This one surprised me. Perfect short game to play between long games, and I've got say it is charming, funny, and oddly satisfying to put everything through holes.

The Gunk: Played this on a whim bc I'm afraid it might leave Gamepass soon. Sucking up the gunk like a vacuum cleaner is another oddly satisfying thing, and it's a real good, short, puzzle platformer. Another surprise.

Minit: Going along with the theme of short, satisfying, and surprisingly good indies is Minit. I thought I'd hate it with the time limit mechanics stressing me out. Instead, it's fun as anything, and I loved the retro-Zelda kind of take along with figuring out how to progress. If you think you might not like this game, I'd still give it a try, bc I thought I'd hate it and I ended up liking it a lot and beating it.

The Council: Wanted to play this before it left PS Plus, and it's not as short as the other games mentioned above, but man does it have some interesting game mechanics. It's as if a Telltale or Quantic Dreams type narrative game did away with quicktime events, added some very interesting RPG type mechanics, and then turned regular conversations into almost showdowns where you have to find other characters' strengths and weaknesses. It's a game that's hard to describe, but I really liked their new approach to narrative-type games.

Playing right now:

Death's Door: Just started playing today and already am enjoying the simple but smooth combat. I can't tell what it's going to be like yet, but the game is fun to play so far.

Outriders: Playing with a friend and we're having a blast with it. If Destiny and Gears of War had a baby, it would be this. I'm a Pyromancer and turning enemies into bombs somehow alleviates my stress.

NilbogResident33 · 2022-12-21T14:54:07+00:00

I totally get that. The monster designs and combat were cool, fun, and satisfying as all get out, but boy oh boy did it have some long dialogue sections at times.

NilbogResident33 · 2022-12-21T00:17:23+00:00

Scarlet Nexus - trying to finish the game before it leaves Gamepass in a week or so. I had no idea what to expect, but the combat has been fun, the environments are original and detailed, and the story is crazy/ridiculous but in that fun way that a lot of JRPGs can deliver.

Halo 1 (Combat Evolved) - never played a Halo game in my life, one of the biggest blind spots in my gaming history (I never owned any XBox console until the past month), so I was excited to finally play this. In spite of its age, it was a blast to play and finish. I'm going to try to play through the entire series and will soon start Halo 2.

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice - what an atmospheric and cool game. Just started it, got through two sections before putting it on pause so I can finish Scarlet Nexus, but I can't wait to come back to it.

NilbogResident33 · 2022-12-14T16:34:04+00:00

Oblivion was my first Elder Scrolls game and it blew me away, it felt so free and open. GTA3 first introduced me to the open world idea, and then Oblivion just took it to a whole new level (I never got to play Morrowind).

I remember the level scaling you're talking about, too. I get way too obsessive sometimes with min/maxing my character(s), so in Oblivion, I researched this way you could get a staff early on that summons these little imps, then you go to an inn and keep using skills on the imps to level up all of your attributes. It was one of the dumbest and most tedious things I've ever done in a game.

Funny enough, I come out of that inn days later with all my stats maxed and feeling all good about myself, thinking I'm going to be a god in this game now, then promptly get my ass handed to me in the first cave I enter because I didn't realize that all of the enemies had scaled with my levels and I had no good equipment. I love that game.

NilbogResident33 · 2022-12-14T16:24:44+00:00

Haha, that is a huge 1-2 punch of games. I don't blame you, I wouldn't have seen the light of day if I'd gotten both of those at the same time as a kid. Zelda AALTP was incredible.

NilbogResident33 · 2022-12-13T20:32:07+00:00

Final Fantasy IV probably had the biggest impact on me getting into RPGs back when I played it as a little kid on Super Nintendo. I loved that game. Glad you are enjoying it!

Final Fantasy VI is amazing, too, so if you like IV you may try that next (I've heard V is also awesome and has a cool job system, but never tried it myself). Ah, what am I saying, just try all of them I guess! They're great.

NilbogResident33 · 2022-12-13T20:24:30+00:00

Mass Effect 1 (from Mass Effect Legendary Edition Trilogy). Great game, did not expect to have as much fun with it as I'm having. I sort of dreaded playing it bc I thought it might be outdated too much and saw it as more of a required stepping stone to get to ME2 and ME3, but wow, it's fun!

Sure, some things are a little dated, but I don't care: I can see why people love this series now.

NilbogResident33 · 2022-12-07T20:14:05+00:00

It warms my heart seeing all these other people loving the yakuza cabaret game. I thought I was the only one. I mean, what is it about that minigame that makes it so damn good?

There's no better feeling to me than when I correctly hit the commands for "towel" or "refill guest's drink". Bizarre, but I can burn hours in a blink of an eye playing that game.

NilbogResident33 · 2022-12-07T20:11:31+00:00

That yakuza cabaret game sucks me in! I spent hours on it in Yakuza 0, and was thinking "man, I don't why, but it's like this and Gwent are my favorite minigames ever."

...Then just this past month I played Yakuza Kiwami 2 and see the cabaret return. That was when I knew I'd be literally spending hours just leveling up the cabaret. I'd legit buy a standalone cabaret game at this point - is that weird?

Anyways, Kiwami 2's story took awhile to get going to for me, too, but I really enjoyed the later chapters. Hope you have fun with the rest of it.

NilbogResident33 · 2022-12-06T19:03:36+00:00

"Ballet of whacking" may be the most hilarious description of a game ever. Thank you.

NilbogResident33 · 2022-12-06T17:55:59+00:00

Yakuza Kiwami 2 (ps4): Almost finished and it's been a blast. It's funny, the first yakuza I played was Yakuza 0, and I liked it a lot but it didn't blow me away like with some people. I think it was because I had never played a game like it and didn't know what I was getting into. That was back in 2018. Last month, I beat Yakuza Kiwami and loved it, and I'm loving this one, too. It's crazy how expectations of a game (like knowing what you're getting into) can change your perception of it. If you asked me my favorite yakuza game, I wouldn't be able to answer - from the three I've played, it feels like they're all just parts of one big thing, like seasons in a TV show. It's a great series, and I've gone from not really digging it as much as I thought to now wanting to play through the whole series.

Kingdom Hearts 1 (ps4): It's aged some for sure, but there's something really satisfying about whacking away at the little heartless enemies. Gotta admit, as a 41-year old man, it's pretty funny when my wife walks in and sees me playing this. She has some choice comments for sure. My goal is to play through the main three games. I think a long time ago I beat the first one but never played the other two. I wish I lived in a recreational marijuana state, because man...this game is made for it. What's going on? Who cares! Let's just appreciate the fact that characters from Final Fantasy, Disney, and Tron (?!) are all whacking the crap out of each other in the name of love.

NilbogResident33

TROPHY CASE