Resident Indie II.
Fixed cameras rarely have been more creepy beautifuuuul.

#TormentedSoulsII

1 hour ago, majestic said:

That's just one of the two endings. The other one isn't much... happier.

The other one

Maelle stays in the painting and is slowly dying from it. Painted Verso is forced to endure his wretched existence.

Everyone else isn't ersased yet, but hey, as soon as Maelle dies in the painting, you can bet your sweet arse Renoir will finish the job anyway.

Yeah, but that is an ending I will never get. Unless it's an achievement and the only one I am missing.

7 hours ago, Sarex said:

This may sound funny, but the ending

is such that it would dampen my mood to play after. Verso's painting dying and Maelle and the family waking up and then you go back to playing is not very conducive to my will to play. But maybe I'm wrong, as I already know the story and am still having fun playing.

No, I completely agree. It felt a bit wrong to go back to explore the world after wrapping the story up. Took a week of break before going back.

So, as I said: pick your poison. Personally, I preferred to treat act3 exploration as mostly non-story post game content. They really should have some kind of scaling for the final area of the game.

8 hours ago, Sarex said:

Yeah, but that is an ending I will never get. Unless it's an achievement and the only one I am missing.

No, there are no achievements for seeing both endings, unless they were added. It's been a while since I have played the game.

3 hours ago, Wormerine said:

They really should have some kind of scaling for the final area of the game.

Don't really see the point. Yes, there's some story and gameplay segregation just before you get help in the final fight if you roflstomped it before, but can roflstomp that even without being overpowered if you got good enough at avoiding damage.

INSTRUMENTALITY!

The fight against Renoir pits your team against his, and neither side can win since he basically painted Giant Naked Reis keeping him alive indefinitely. It's only after Aline shows up with her own GNR that you can actually win, story wise. Whether you struggle with the boss or not, that's just how it goes. Not the worst idea of the developers. Would have been nice if Maelle could make her own GNR, but hey, pressed for time and all that, I guess.

Possessor(s). The playthrough is going reasonably well and I have found a defeated the second boss who, I suspect, I was supposed to fight much later (the boss became a merchant with a qutie nice inventory). I've also explored all parts of the map I could reach with the down-strike ability which was quite a lot.

---

The Land of the Magnates. It looked like it was inspired by the Prince of Persia series. The controls are rebindable, the engine is UE5 (I dislike the everpresent smudge on everything), and the camera angles are not quite comfortable, so dropped it after 30 minutes.

---

Recital Of The Heart Playtest. A very lovely Metroidvania. The controls are rebindable and the game has a functional saving system. There are some quirks with combat and balance, but, overall, it was enjoyable. I think there is something about the MC's inner struggles and/or literature.

---

Esoteric Ebb demo. I'd like to start with that what's on my drive is mine to keep. Though, I strongly detest the RNG in dialogues and the positioning of the dialogue panels, which did not need a demo to see. The game itself is "Disco Elysium, but D&D-like" (not Faerun).

Crimson Desert -

EDIT - TLDR - my love/hate relationship with the game continues, basically. There really are 10/10 moments, most of the time it's a 7, and then there are the 4/10 moments/aspects. Heh.

--- I think I'm a little past half-way the Main Quest - which is nowhere near "completion" of game content, mind. I might stop there for a while and just go my own way for as long as I'm able. I'm beginning to really dislike the MQ and their steps. It's boring/repetitive and hugely time-wasting re: back and forth. You can't skip-speed dialogues (only FFWD in cutscenes) and sometimes it goes on and on. The sky-Abyss puzzling is also annoying over time, even while visually/design amazing at times.
--- Kliff, so far, has developed zero personality. He mostly grunts, outside of some MQ dialogues. eg, I find him easy to ignore, he's just a blank avatar while you're running around exploring.

--- the poster-bounties are so not worth it because you have to take a criminal back to a faction's jail by foot or horseback. Can't teleport. And some of them are REALLY FAR AWAY. I spent an hour plus looking for a (horse) safe/non-hostile path back, once. And if you don't do them, the posters stay in your inventory forever, can't even drop them. I stopped looking at/picking up those posters.
--- the 2 other playable characters, one issue is increasing their skills and refining their gear to high levels takes away from increasing the others skills/gears, because you'd need triple the resources and special Abyss skill stone thingies AND the socket "gems" to do all three equally. Maybe you can get there post-MQ with grind, but most aren't going to want to do that initially/for a long time. You're gonna mostly focus/stick on Kliff, because Kliff is the MQ One.
--- what this game does well is have so many different things/systems to do and ways to do it, that players can decide what the game is, for them. I mean, technically, after chapt 6 or so, which is around where I am (I've also heard chapt. 9, if you're into the other playable chrs), you could largely ignore the MQ for 200 hours if you really wanted, etc.

Edited April 3Apr 3 by LadyCrimson

Frost Eveque took way too long to kill... At least I got the foot, but it would have been easier without Monoco.

Edited April 3Apr 3 by Sarex

Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden. If you liked Vampyr you need to play this. Basically the same gameplay, but polished a bit more. Story and atmosphere is really good. Enemy variety is poor, but some good boss battles.

The fing climing is pissing me off...

On 3/30/2026 at 7:24 PM, Bartimaeus said:

I got drawn into playing Dead by Daylight by some friends, which is a 1v4 asymmetrical PVP game. Unfortunately, I seem to be a lot better at murdering people (the 1 killer) than I am at living (the 4 survivors), which doesn't really jive with the spirit of co-op with your friends... Whoops.

Solid choice! Who have you been playing as? Getting to grips as a killer is immensely satisfying. Really opens up later on too.

Possessor(s). I love the combat system and the passive that sends the projectiles right back at the attacker. After I found where to go (the map did not cooperate), the story picked up the pace and progresses steadily - there's a decent character development and lore (alas, no lore dumps).

Judging by the achievements and an in-game side quest, there are more powerful versions of the main bosses. The one I have fought had a completely different moveset to its main story counterpart. It also was sitting on one of the main weapons (I've gathered all of them by now and fully upgraded 2).

There are some rough edges, I assume due to the time constraints (the exploration dialogues seem to be out of sequence), but it is very enjoyable overall.

Xenonauts 2 is fully released and is glorious.

19 hours ago, SellSwordDev said:

Solid choice! Who have you been playing as? Getting to grips as a killer is immensely satisfying. Really opens up later on too.

Huntress, mainly because she was one of the initially unlocked killers. I have a 70% kill rate over my first 50 games, which doesn't seem too shabby. Her hatchets are such an effective pallet/vaulting punishment that is very difficult for survivors to cope with if you can get their timing and the aiming down, it seems. I've played a little bit of The Nurse and The Dredge as well, but I'm still learning them, they seem much more difficult to get the hang of.

Crimson Desert - Probably 70-75 hrs now. I get close, sometimes, to thinking "this is it, this is where it'll super-click and become a 9/10" but then it doesn't. There are just too many 3/10 moments/situations to balance it out. Heh. Still, it's good enough (and ofc, never done it before), that I keep playing.

--- I spent 2-3 hours pick-pocketing bunny-masked nobles of their gold bars (you can sell these at a Bank for 500 silver). So I'm now "rich". You don't really need lots of currency, at all, in the game, although some small costs do add up over time. But it was funny in a weird way so I kept doing it.
--the base "camp" feature is more involved then I originally thought. Not in a building way, but in tons of tasks to upgrade and get some resources, even a bit of farming. All of which are kinda half-arsed, but some may like it a lot. Mostly it's a way to centralize your npc shopping and I guess warm fuzzies re: gathering all the Greymane's again.
--when a mission tells me to "clear an area", I wish I could actually "clear" an area. Instead it's a stupid fill a bar situation, where kill enough enemies to satisfy that bar, bang area resets/you've won/liberated. This is repetitive. Most of the time, they all flock towards you or endlessly respawn as well. I've completed some just standing around near an entrace gate of a large complex, watching red-dots on mini-map rushing towards me. This is lame.
--POI and sidequest density does seem to shrink a bit the father out you go. Every region has some but Hernand is the most concentrated.
--many enemy areas and bosses do not respawn if you've finished the quest related to them, making action-combat sparse in the long run, if that's your desired focus.
--combat does become slightly more interesting - at least flashy and a bit more AoE factors - with more varied/higher level scoket gems and skill powers. I think they're called Abyss gears, but to me, such will always be socket-gems, sorry.
--flying enemies suck in a largely melee-centric game. Axiom Force powers and bows work but yeah, they suck.

Im about 60 hours into AC Valhalla and its time for a review

Im having lots of fun, Im in that Ubisoft honeymoon period where the repeated activities are still fun. So Im enjoying building my village, raiding, river raiding, hunting, fishing and finding random artifacts

I am also Romancing both Randvi and Petra ....not sure how that is going to work out 💞

I have the pledges of about 5 regions so Im also progressing the main narrative and Im at the part where Sigurd is taken hostage. I stated the whole Odin\Asgard side quests but Im not sure I want to continue on those, I like just RP as Eivor

But overall great AC game, lots to do and its set in an interesting era of history around culture and wars.

@Gorth

Despite the reality of the game being actively part of the terrible carnage and colonialism of what the Vikings did to my Anglo-Saxon ancestors I haven't had any trauma or anxiety

So I should be fine to continue with this game, the potential emotional crisis is over

On 4/5/2026 at 8:31 PM, Bartimaeus said:

Huntress, mainly because she was one of the initially unlocked killers. I have a 70% kill rate over my first 50 games, which doesn't seem too shabby. Her hatchets are such an effective pallet/vaulting punishment that is very difficult for survivors to cope with if you can get their timing and the aiming down, it seems. I've played a little bit of The Nurse and The Dredge as well, but I'm still learning them, they seem much more difficult to get the hang of.

Wonderful, I'm more of a survivor, but whenever I do play as the killer, Huntress is my main. She's great fun. Covers both close and long range combat, plus she's pretty mobile too. If I remember correctly, she has a perk that limits the total amount of hatchets but they can down players instantly. Insane trade-off if you're accurate enough. 70% is impressive, especially since you haven't played much. Most early matches don't result in many kills, so good job there.

The Nurse is difficult as she needs to take a breather after every two swings. Don't think I've ever played Dredge so I can't comment on them. The Trapper is a simple enough killer to learn, but he's arguably the worst one to choose as his kit is extremely basic. All he can do is lay down traps (hence his name) that can actually harm you if you're not careful. Sure, some of his perks are alright, but he gets worse with every update. You might enjoy the Wraith. He can turn invisible and roam around the map. Only issue is that he makes a loud noise every time he uncloaks. Still a decent pick though.

WoW storyline is dumber than usual, but at least the music is nice and the levelling experience is fun. Next up is the previously requisite troll raid.

2 hours ago, Malcador said:

WoW storyline is dumber than usual, but at least the music is nice and the levelling experience is fun. Next up is the previously requisite troll raid.

I am also playing WoW, after a few years away. I don't really know what is happening anymore, but my house looks nice.

29 minutes ago, Hurlshort said:

I am also playing WoW, after a few years away. I don't really know what is happening anymore, but my house looks nice.

It is a long standing issue that WoW is rough for a new or returning player, the game has over 20 years under its belt granted. They've streamlined it a lot but it's still messy if you don't know the backstory to Jaina or Nozdormu or whatever.

Crimson Desert - if you're the type who's only interested in combat/bosses and/or main quest following, you wont be engaging with maybe 60% of the game's content, I swear anything puzzle-y is 1/5th of he interactive content. I'd guess 60-80hrs of MQ and 300+ of "other." And the game's achievement list is - yeah, most aren't going to engage much with that I think. Just saying.

The most interesting (or at least weirdest/different) gear options are very late game. Some people may not even get to it before most combat scenarios are actually over. So many things you don't even realize are options, for ages, because the game doesn't mention/telegraph it all. Even stuff like the world map icon and POI information/how it works is obscure. EDIT: like a black dot in a while circle of POI icon = haven't completed all things, while to find out if you've been to a cave already, you Journal and look up text cave description and there's one or two white dots. >.> And that dragon in videos? Super late game. And it has a cooldown timer and stuff. Again, just saying.

I dunno guys - a beautiful and immersive environmental world, with lots of micro-exploration and simple quest busywork, but gameplay/rewards etc. still feel unrewarding. If you really connect with the former, you can mostly forgive the latter, but it can make motivation sag a lot by mid-game.

That all said - there was one mid-chapter section where the big battle was actually fun/interesting. Tons of enemies with big aggro range+progress bar, but they didn't respawn, more than one subgoal to do. It felt vast and battlefield like, fast, and engaging. If the rest had felt more like that, it'd would've been so much better.

EDIT: oh, and story-bosses are relatively "easy" - especially since you can heal-revive spam like mad if desired - but some of the side bosses are brutal. The one-two you're dead in the first 3 seconds and/or their main attack, types, until you retry a dozen times and get lucky/figure it out. Or leave and go back later. Oh, I like the combat music in general, and the combat/boss cutscenes are actually fun to watch. Mostly.

Edited April 9Apr 9 by LadyCrimson

I finally started the Protoss campaign in Starcraft 2. Am actually having fun. Also trying the co-op mode I never knew existed.

2 hours ago, melkathi said:

I finally started the Protoss campaign in Starcraft 2. Am actually having fun. Also trying the co-op mode I never knew existed.

Wings of Liberty is still my favourite, but I loved Sc2 singleplayer campaign. I also like co-op mode in its own brainless grindy way. Which reminds me, I don't think I ever platinumed Legacy of the Void nor Nova DLC. Maybe should get back to it.

God of War Ragnarok - it's a solid sequel. No real complaints beside what I already didn't like about GoW2018. Valhalla rogue-lite mode was an odd choice, considering how weak GoW combat and RPG systems are. Just spent enough time with it to see the story through and tick of achievements.

Started Ghost of Tsushima, and I am loving it so far. The game looks stunning - I am usually not a "photo mode guy" but in my first session I already jumped into it couple times to better admire vistas. Gameplay looks simple but snappy and well put together. Movement feels good. Samurai epic vibe I like. Now I am a bit sad Sony cancelled sequels port to PC. ☹️ I suppose you gotta do, what you gotta do to justify SF5 price hike.

Oh, played through Early Access of Solasta2. Not much content in there. It is still very janky and very charming. It seems they aimed to improve on weakest aspects of Solasta, that being a visual presentation and story - still, at this point I wouldn't recommend playing S2 for either of those reasons. I am a bit worried if they didn't loose a bit of their strength in the process - levels so far were far simpler and dungeons much... flatter. Without Solastas verticality and enviroment interactability, it felt a bit more generic - still, I know flying is in process of being implemented so maybe it will change in final release.

Once again UI is pretty good, but with few complaints. They seemed to adopt something akin to BG3 chain system, and character boxing and custom grouping isn't a thing at least for the moment. That makes M&K feel a bit clunky to me, even if its still more efficient way to play. Controller felt much more natural, though much slower during combat. Still, I must praise UI design. I would think it obvious, but after a mess that is BG3 I don't think I will ever take decent UI design for granted again.

I hated Star Craft 2's campaign(s). Not the gameplay, mind you, but the endless retcons, the character assassinations, the ludicrous storyline and cashing in on a highly popular franchise* by releasing a single game's worth of content in three full-priced installments.

*Man, now that I spelled it out, I realize that all of that also applies to the new Star Wars Trilogy.

Edited April 9Apr 9 by majestic

I got so tired of the "And then Zeratul appears and progresses the story".

1 hour ago, majestic said:

I hated Star Craft 2's campaign(s). Not the gameplay, mind you, but the endless retcons, the character assassinations, the ludicrous storyline and cashing in on a highly popular franchise* by releasing a single game's worth of content in three full-priced installments.

Well, yes. Even not as a long time Sc fan (played through it directly before Sc2), I did find mostly change in tone somewhat disappointing. I still like Wings of Liberty story stuff the most, and I think that's why I liked it best. I really disliked Swarm, and was completely checked out narrative wise for the Void.

Still, pretty darn fun RTS campaign gameplay wise. I always meant to start playing Sc2 online at some point - never got around to it. ☹️

Edited April 9Apr 9 by Wormerine