everynowandben

I beat Batman: Arkham Shadow (amazing) on Wednesday, and then CoD: Black Ops 6 (good) on Thursday.

Last night I beat Down the Rabbit Hole. It was okay. It was worth the 2 hours it took considering it was free, but I wouldn't really recommend it. This morning I played another level of Doom: Legacy of Rust which I'm continuing to enjoy. Most of my gaming time this weekend will be spent on Mario & Luigi: Brothership. It's alright so far.

I loved Black Myth Wukong. Currently my game of the year, just ahead of Silent Hill 2, Batman Arkham Shadow, Sonar Shock, and Animal Well. Maybe Indiana Jones will disrupt that though.

Bouncing around between CoD: Black Ops 6, Batman: Arkham Shadow, and Mario & Luigi: Brothership.

Last night I finished off Jack Holmes: Master of Puppets which honestly had some great moments, but was pretty bad overall. The controls are terrible, the story is nonsense, the enemy variety wasn't there, boss fights were awful, voice acting was abysmal, puzzles were dumb, glitched out more than once.. On the other hand, graphics are decent, very colorful, the atmosphere is there, and some of the attractions at the carnival were a blast - specifically the parodies of Animal Crossing and Pirates of the Caribbean. That was good stuff and almost made the rest of it worth it.

The rest of the weekend I'll be playing more Batman: Arkham Shadow which continues to be brilliant, and also for the first time in my life, I'm playing a COD campaign. After checking out a bunch of reviews, all singing praises for being so unique compared to prior entries, I dove into Call of Duty: Black Ops 6. The one gun at a time limit is pretty lame imo, but it's still been decently fun overall so far. Very curious to get to some of the more interesting missions I heard about.

@Elbow Your loss for being petty about something as trivial as a name. Prey 2017 is, imho, one of the best games ever made, and you're not going to play it simply because the title of the game is the same title of a different game... okay. A great game is a great game - doesn't matter what the name of it is.

This weekend I'll be playing more Batman: Arkham Shadow, which has been incredible so far. Easily one of the best VR games of all time. I'm also still chipping away at Pokemon Xenoverse.

Pretty much all of my non-exclusive purchases are for PC. Occasionally I will "buy" games on Xbox using rewards points.

Finished Silent Hill 2 the other day, and impatiently waiting for both Batman: Arkham Shadow and Alan Wake 2: The Lake House DLC.

Ended up playing some of the Half Life 1: Raytraced mod last night, and another level of the Doom: Legacy of Rust EP. Probably will end up just chipping away at those until Tuesday.

Silent Hill 2 Remake for me this weekend. I don't have much experience with the franchise, but I'm loving this game so far.

I beat Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom a couple days ago. Great game!

Last night I hopped back into Pokemon: Xenoverse and got the third gym badge. This will be my main game for the weekend.

@InterceptorAlpha Right, all I meant is that I know its possible to play Xbox games on PC with gyro controls as I have done this before.

I can't seem to find a controller like that anywhere. Thank you for the other link. If you happen to know of any controller with all of those features, I'd love another recommendation.

@InterceptorAlpha They do on PC. There just doesn't seem to be a controller that exists for any platform that has all of those things.

I just want a controller with hall effect sticks, 4 back buttons, gyro, and is wireless. Why does that not exist?

I thought about getting it, but decided not to bother. Too many other games to play that I feel much more confident about enjoying.

The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is taking up my gaming time this weekend. I'm in the 4th dungeon and loving this game. The performance is pretty awful, but the game itself is amazing.

Beat this one over the weekend. It was amazing. 10/10 for me, and my GotY so far.

I'm very excited for this!! Cannot wait to play it.

Just reached the final chapter in Black Myth: Wukong last night. Going to go back to chapter 5 and grab a couple things I missed, and then see if I can't finish off the rest of the game this weekend.

Nearing the end of chapter 4 in Black Myth: Wukong. Such an incredible game..

I'm also playing through Pokemon: Xenoverse on my Steam Deck. If you haven't heard of that particular one with sooo many Pokemon fan games and rom hacks out there, this one is a PC game (not a rom hack) with a few standout features such as a new type - Sound - and a bunch of fakemon, in addition to standard Pokemon and new regional variants. It's pretty cool so far!

Nice. I never played this back in the day, so I will definitely give it a go if it drops onto Game Pass.

Yesterday I beat Tacoma which just about put me in a (Ta)coma. Didn't find any aspect of it interesting at all. Not sure how anyone could possibly consider it an "immersive sim." It has literally 0 of the qualifiers of the genre/style.

Also still playing Black Myth: Wukong and Doom: Legacy of Rust.

25 hours into Black Myth: Wukong and loving it. With a little bit of trickery, it actually runs fairly decently on Steam Deck so I was able to bring it with me on vacation and everything 😎

I would buy it if it had gyro

Last night I played a bunch of Pico-8 games, including a couple neat FPS titles like Caped Feline Arena (which sounds like a multi-player, but it's just a normal boomer shooter type game) and also Picohot which is a demake of Superhot except that you cannot turn the camera at all - I finished that one in maybe 5 minutes, so calling it short would be a massive understatement. While it does cost money to buy the Pico-8 console license, you can play the games for free in your internet browser on PC or Mobile. There are also emulation options as well. Check it out if you haven't - the whole concept of a "fantasy console" is super interesting.

Mostly though I'm just playing Black Myth: Wukong. I finally beat the Whiteclad Noble after grinding a bunch of levels and many attempts and re-strategizing my approach. Bit of a speed bump there for me, so hoping to get back into adventuring.

@Grippie Even after the acquisitions, a number of Xbox owned games have come to PS Plus. Just saying that it's not at all out of the question.

My gaming goal this weekend is to beat 3 games.
1) Finish off Doom: Legacy of Rust. This has been pretty great so far. The new enemies are interesting, and the flamethrower is a great addition. 3 levels left.
2) Tacoma. I wasn't the biggest fan of Gone Home, but this game looks like it will be a lot better.
3) Norwood Suite. Last week I played the prologue, and it was bonkers. Hoping the full game will be a little more engaging gameplay-wise.

This morning I played through a couple very, very short free Steam games, both of which were essentially walking sims. The first one was called Cassiculus, and it was kinda dumb; horror themed, had a RE style inventory for no reason, and the one "puzzle" could have been solved by a 3 year old. The other was called Off-Peak. It was surreal, and at least more environmentally interesting than the other game. You just kinda wander around a bizarre train station, listening to a few people talk if you want to, find a few pieces of a train ticket, and then the game is over. It's supposed to be a prologue to a different game called The Norwood Suite, which appears to be more of an actual game.

Other than that, I'm playing through the Thomas Porter campaign of The Dark Mod. So far, it's not even close to as good as the William Steele campaign or any of the Thief games (or it's fan campaigns), but maybe it will get better as I get further into it.

I'm back into Sonar Shock after putting it down for a bit. The controls are intentionally clunky as an old-school design choice: no jumping, no strafing, and the mouse moves a cursor on the screen rather than controlling the camera. It was tough to get used to, but now that I have, I'm really enjoying what the game has to offer. It definitely deserves to have the word "shock" in its name as tribute to System Shock and Bioshock. I love the freedom and depth of customizing your character build to your particular playstyle - it is an immersive sim, after all. One interesting mechanic is that your psi powers run on sanity, so using them (or seeing certain enemies or particularly disturbing environments) makes you start to hallucinate, not at all disimilar to something like Eternal Darkness, and smoking cigarettes increases your sanity, but decreases your health. Pretty cool stuff!

Suicide Squad. It's not good. I knew it would be bad, but it still sucks to see it happen. A real shame and a waste.

I don't replay games, so I will not be picking this up, but for newcomers, this game is really fun and hilarious.

On Thursday I finally rolled credits on Octopath Traveler 2 at 79 hours. Absolutely incredible game. Loved it from start to finish. 9.5/10

Then yesterday I played through Ashes: Dead Man Walking, which was decent for a short little expansion of Ashes: 2063. Just didn't really do anything special or unique compared to the main game. 7/10

I also played through A Juggler's Tale last night. The concept is better than the execution, not that it was a bad game or anything. Found the narrator to be a bit annoying and unnecessary, and the gameplay just isn't as fun or engaging as similar titles such as Limbo, Little Nightmares, etc. 6/10

My main gaming focus this weekend will be finishing Still Wakes the Deep. Excited to get back into it. Octopath kinda took over my life for about a month there! After that, I may finish up Sonar Shock or dive back into Metroid Prime 2, but I picked up Suicide Squad KTJL for free on Prime Day, and really want to check that out too!

I'm getting pretty close to finishing up Octopath Traveler 2 and still really enjoying it. I don't usually get this into JRPGs outside of Pokemon.

Eh. It looks phenomenal, but the gameplay just isn't there. I beat the game the day it came out, and it was just kinda tedious to play through. For me the first one was a 7, this one was a 6.

Just more Octopath Traveler 2 for now.

Its alright, but it's no Dead Space.

Neon White is a win for me.

Just more Octopath Traveler 2. I'm 20 hours in and really loving it. I've got my main squad kitted out with secondary jobs now, and the battle mechanics are even more fun than before. What an excellent game.

Played more Zombie Army 4: Dead War with the guys last night. Still having a blast with it.

Since the Nintendo Direct did not show Metroid Prime 2 Remaster, I figure it must not be coming for a long time if ever, and got Metroid Prime 2: Echoes running via the primehack version of dolphin. Yes, I do own the physical copy, I just don't want to play it with that horrendous control scheme. I'm maybe 1/5 of the way through. It's pretty good, but not great so far. Scanning everything is just kindof annoying tbh. Looking forward to what will happen next.

Also chipping away slowly at Octopath Traveler 2 and possibly starting up Still Wakes the Deep if I end up with any extra time or get tired of scanning ad nauseum in MP2.

Nothing on my list this time, thankfully. I played the EGS version of FIST but never finished it. Maybe I'll go back to it someday, but probably not tbh.

I beat the High on Life: High on Knife DLC yesterday before the base game leaves game pass, and while it was fun, it was very short, maybe 3 hours, and probably not worth the asking price, even though it was on sale. The new gun was pretty interesting to use - not sure I've ever seen anything like that in an FPS game before. The absence of JR was welcomed, I just think he is obnoxious more than anything, but this DLC was still not very funny imho. But it didn't have to be. I hope their next game just focuses on being unique and creative, something they're good at, rather than using humor as a crutch.

Last night I played some more Zombie Army 4: Dead War and I don't understand why this game isn't more popular and talked about. It has a ton going for it: great variety in mission types, weapons, upgrades, environments, etc., great pacing, and it's just flat out fun. If you like games like Left 4 Dead, WWZ, Vermintide, etc., give this game a go. It's way better than it looks like it would be. Is that it's problem? Branding? It looks super generic, and has a bland title, but it's a blast to play with friends.

Also playing more Warhammer 40K: Boltgun. It's fun to play, but I can't bring myself to play it for long sessions for whatever reason, and it's taken me forever to get even 2/3 of the way through it.

@Gamer83 Yeah, unfortunately the new one was seemingly canceled months ago now:

https://www.purexbox.com/news/2024/01/deus-ex-game-reportedly-cancelled-as-another-embracer-studio-hit-by-layoffs

I'm playing through High on Life before it leaves Game Pass. I think the "humor" is terrible to be honest. Its simply not funny - there's nothing clever about swearing just to swear, and it comes across as trying way too hard and falling flat every time. And that's a shame, because I think the game itself is actually quite good. Now that I'm over the halfway point, I have unlocked enough weapons/modifiers/abilities to make combat so much more enjoyable that it was during the first few hours. The way that the weapons are useful for both combat and exploration is actually pretty smart, although I don't think they quite push the limits of the potential there - maybe they do by the end, I haven't finished it yet of course - but the concept there is easily my favorite aspect of the game. The weapons are super annoying (when they open their mouths), but also, super unique and interesting to use. I almost gave up on the game a couple hours in because I thought the game was irritating and shallow, but I'm glad I didn't, because it's actually irritating and deep, and the depth is more clever and fun than the irritating is offputting and ruinous.

Also can't wait to play the Alan Wake 2 Night Springs DLC!

I thought Callisto was kinda bad, but I'm pumped for Octopath 2. Started it up last night with Castti.

Earlier this week I beat Animal Well, which was amazing. If you were considering it, I would highly recommend going in as blind as possible and seeing what it has to offer for yourself. You won't be disappointed. It embodies the refresh the metroidvania genre needed.

I also went to an arcade a few days ago and played through the entirety of Luigi's Mansion Arcade for the first time. The machine itself was a little inconsistent with tracking the reticle, but it was still a blast. Took maybe 30 minutes or so and I spent about $12 on credits to get from start to finish. The arcade also had Mario Kart GP, but I didn't get to play it there. However, I found "alternate means" of playing that, and have been racing through Mario Kart GP 2. I didn't realize the cups are just the same track 4 times in a row with slight differences like rain, or item limitations, or the items are in a different spot, or the track bends left instead of right and maybe there's a "new" aspect to it like a bridge instead of a tunnel, etc. So there are technically 32 tracks, but really there are only 8 tracks and they just change sometimes. Some of the items are interesting though, like the black shell, which explodes like a bomb when it hits something. I think that might be the only instance of a black shell in the Mario universe. There are actually a ton of items that are not in the main series of Mario Kart games. Some of the more interesting examples are tacks that flatten your tires and make your kart veer off to one side, and other more imaginative items that will lock your steering wheel, or prevent you from jumping, or make your tires square. There's a lot more than that too. Kinda neat, and way more creative than the track design is.

Last night the guys and I played a few rounds of Helldivers 2 which is fun, but I personally don't find it to be the masterpiece that other people seem to think it is. It's pretty repetitive and I'm not a big fan of some of the mechanics such as how reloading works or the way it forces you to buy things you don't want in order to unlock the possibility of buying something you do want. Don't get me wrong, it's fun, and good, just not a "great" game in my opinion.

Also still chipping away at Warhammer 40k: Boltgun and Mortal Kombat 9.

Awesome they were able to put this out before closing up shop. Sad to see one of my favorite devs die.

I finished Hellblade 2 the same day it came out, so not that. It was alright, maybe even good. But the gameplay lacks depth, and it can be boring at times. This weekend I'll be testing out the waters in Sonar Shock which is a System Shock inspired game that takes place in a submarine. Just came out yesterday on Steam and it looks amazing. Maybe some more Fallout 76 with the guys tonight too.

@Benjamin This remake is much less of an immersive sim than Prey. There aren't really enough systems in place or level design that allows for deep player choice/creativity in the way that Prey, Dishonored, Deus Ex, etc. have to really call this one an imsim. It's also much more difficult than Prey in my opinion if that matters to you one way or another. For me personally, Prey is 10/10 while System Shock remake is 8/10.

I got the One S with Doom and a second controller for $150 on a Black Friday sale and that was hard to resist. My friends play mostly on Xbox and those 2 factors got me into their ecosystem. I'm done with Xbox after this gen though. I have a nice PC and a Steam Deck now and have no reason to own an Xbox console going forward, especially in light of their recent self-sabotaging business practices. I post mostly on this site because there isn't a PC version of the sister sites. Speaking of that, why isn't there one? 🧐

Last night I finished Ashes 2063, which I really enjoyed as my first Doom total conversion. Interestingly, it looks and feels a bit more like a Duke 3D mod than a Doom one. Set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland with small outposts filled with shady characters to talk to, trade with, and shop from. The guns are nothing overly crazy, but are all pretty cool/useful, and ammo is a bit scarce, so you will find a use for them all. There are subways, abandoned facilities, radiation zones, and motorcycle rides through the desert. The soundtrack is just incredible, too. Mutants and punky scavengers make up most of the enemies, but there are a couple surprises as well. It has some lite RPG type elements thrown in, but its mainly a boomer shooter experience. Maybe 5 or 6 hours long. I would highly recommend checking out it if you're into games like STALKER, Fallout, Metro, and also games like Doom, Duke 3D, or retro shooters in general.

I'll be mostly playing more Thief 2X: Shadows of the Metal Age the rest of the weekend, but I'll knock out a few levels of Warhammer 40k: Boltgun as well.

Looking forward to Hellblade 2 on Tuesday!

Okay. Cool that they can finish the patch at least. Farewell to one of my favorite devs.