Menace - This is the new game from the developers of Battle Brothers. The demo came out awhile ago and it was not great for me. You are managing a team of Space Marines. The demo threw you into the middle of a campaign and it was just overwhelming and not clear.

It is now in EA, and you can play from the start, which is a much easier way to learn the systems. I enjoyed my first mission and it seems like a solid tactical game. So it's worth picking up if you liked BB and want to support the developers.

Since as usual I don't feel like committing to a new game just yet, I keep fiddling with the games I already own. Besides NMS/7 Days, I keep stockpiling resources in Enshrouded, so that one chr. can be the resource-server for other characters. Mostly because I also can't make myself commit to choosing base location spots with other chrs (not to mention even twink-half-replaying the game to do so). I do the same thing in 7 Days.

"That's a nice spot, maybe here." "This spot seems even better, maybe here." "Oh wait, that spot over there might be perfect." Repeat 500 times.

At least in 7 Days (and to some extent, NMS), you can have 400 bases all over the map if you want, so you can just abandon old locations. Stupid 10 base limit in Enshrouded.

But hey, at least I'll have 100k+ of all building blocks in case I ever make up my mind.

Ok, so I went into Elden Ring NG+ and I have to say.... it's so damn easy, damn. Seems I'm completely overleveled. Nothing is really too much of a threat to me. Sure I still kinda die every once in a while, but so far I was able to absolutely smoke every boss I've attempted. Just today I've taken down Mogh again, and then I did Radahn... he couldn't even go into his phase 2. I've speeded through it a little, because I wanted to unlock the DLC area again. Haven't tried the bosses there yet, but I'm sure they won't be too much of an issue either.

Feels a bit like Bloodborne, where I went into NG+ and just started smoking everything as if I'm still in the regular game.

Been playing a lot of Against The Storm. They added Seals at some point, which I guess are the city builder equivalent of boss battles. Every time you fix a seal, the duration of the cycles gets extended, allowing you to build settlements farther from the city, and the farther you get the higher the difficulty. I beat the Gold Seal which is kinda the story goal. Now I am pushing through Prestige difficulty to get to the next one. Last cycle I was one settlement too far away. This time I may just beat it if I get lucky and beat the next couple of settlements in good time. I kinda doubt it since I am at Prestige 5 difficulty.

After my epic LoreRim\Skyrim adventures I am having my normal break from this type of genre

So I played 2 Fighting Fantasy (FF)CYOA PC games, Scorpion Swamp and Port of Peril

As usual these provided great nostalgic experiences and especially Scorpion Swamp which was always one of my favorite books in the FF series

Both quick games as usual, I finished each one in 4-5 hours

Now Im playing Dead Island 2. Its a normal Zombie killing game and its lots of fun. These games typically follow the same model and it works

• hilarious and interesting NPCs who give you quests

• different types of zombies so you generally have to adopt different combat strategies

• interesting crafting around weapons

• lots of side quests so you can deviate from the main quest

Its really not difficult, if you die you respawn immediately and the enemies are still wounded. So you can just keep dying and eventually you win every battle

But its still entertaining, I never get bored of killing Zombies 🧟‍♂️

Edited Monday at 07:10 AM2 days by BruceVC

Tainted Grail DLC was a mistake. I finished the DLC but it completely sapped my interest in the game. I think I chose the bad ending because I stopped paying attention to what anyone was saying.

Also went back to TOW2. I am enjoying it somewhat the second(third? Fourth?) time around. I like the companions. Although their reactivity to what you are doing is a little lacking. I completely ransacked a protectorate building and aside from dude saying "let's leave this place exactly how we found it" after I took everything i could, he seemed to have no problem with me destroying the place.

Edit: also i did the old save game slaughter everyone one time. And a companion had a dialgoue box so I talked to her thinking she'd be mad I slaughtered a whole town. Nope she told me how she thinks "spacers choice could do a better job helping these refugees".... I dont think that matters anymore

I'm not sure sci fi space RPGs benefit from open worlds. These locations would be more memorable if you cut out all the traveling from one end of a map to the other.

IMO nothing is going to compare to New Vegas because devs want to make everything bigger. When the story takes place in many locations it just feels impersonal. if it took place on one planet you could weave the story together. As it is everything feels forgettable. That first town will never be visited again because I've got 5 other planets to explore.

Played a bit of that Yakuza pirate game... its kinda fun but I'm already over the endless cutscenes and tutorials. I'm guessing there are popup tutorials until you are on the final act.

I may never finish a game ever again

Edited yesterday at 03:38 AM1 day by Theonlygarby

14 hours ago, Theonlygarby said:

I may never finish a game ever again

I sometimes feel like I may never start a game again. eg, trying new games.
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Still messing around in Enshrouded a bit. Did I ever mention there is no currency? eg, no buying/selling/trading. Kinda refreshing, that.

NMS finally had an emoji tweet - wonder what the next Expedition will bring in terms of items or possibly new feature. Or nothing. Could be a good time to return to that one for a bit tho.

Still dreaming of/wishing for the perfect sandbox.

Finished Between Horizons, similar Detective game like Lacuna. Bit too many characters though, I didn't really learn much about any of them all that much and even the protagonist isn't fleshed out all that much. Puzzles were fun though, basic deductions mostly, there are multiple endings but have to replay the whole game (or I guess find the save file and play with it that way) as there's no manual saves.

Resubscribed to GamePass to test few things on my new 5070 Ti, so now I am speeding through what I can before the subscriptions runs out.

Doom: Dark Ages. It's alright. I loved Eternal but Dark Ages lands for me in D2016 territory - laud, meaty gameplay loop, but in the end somewhat hollow. I really liked it for the first few hours, after than I got a bit bored and irritated with some of its designs. The game's heavily revolves around new shield/parry mechanics and guns feel somewhat 2ndary in this one. Novel at first, but becomes quite repetitive and dull by the end. Still, some interesting ideas. To me Eternal took ideas of D2016 tightened the screws and delivered something special. I feel Dark Ages could use something similar.

Otherwise, just putting my 5070 Ti though a ringer. So far I am somewhat underwhelmed. Moving from 3070 it is not quite a jump I was hoping for. Outside few outliers the gains seem smaller then I would have hoped. For the most part games that I could run before, I can run about the same but with prettier settings. Games that run like ass on 3070, still tend to run like ass - either I stick to lower settings and get a bit more consistant framerate, or try to pretty things up and also end up with similar questionable frame drops.

So far the only two real game changers were Indiana Jones and Doom Dark Ages - both, I think, were a bit much for 3070's 8GB of vRAM and required heavy visual sacrifices and offered not so great framerate. On 5070 Ti, on the other hand, they look and run beautifully.

Something like Outer Worlds2 though - on 3070 I had to turn down the settings and have a hideously looking game that couldn't sustain 60FPS - now I could fine tune something to make me happy, but I am still disappointed by the overall performance. Set things to high with balanced DLSS and it will still dip below 60 FPS - be it 4k or 1440p. It is still and improvement - OW2 and Ninja Gaiden4 were two games I just didn't think my 3070 could deliver on anymore, and they are playable and enjoyable now, but I don't think it bodes well for 5070Ti longevity. Unless GPU truly are reaching a limit of processing power they can deliver.

I am happy with my new OLED monitor though. I think a smarter move would be to just get 1440p OLED and wait for a greater breakthrough on GPU front. But hey, maybe if more games like Indiana Jones and D:DA come out it might end up being a worthwhile investment. For the other stuff - so far the conclusion is, if it runs well on 5070 Ti it also run alright on 3070. If it run like ass on 3070, 5070 Ti isn't enough to power through that.