Sincve it’s raining heavily in Sunny Southend ™️this Saturday morning I have been mooching online and ended up re-reading @pencilsqueezer’s Starfield thread. Later (if I can find the time in my busy schedule) I’m going to continue my 3rd play through GTA-V and this time will probably loosen the wallet strings for the DLC.
So this …
… is just a general “what game are you playing, how are you finding it?” question for the Massive.
Oh lordy Starfield. It’s a bit of a curate’s egg of a game. I haven’t looked at it for some time. Bethesda have recently released the Shattered Space DLC so I may revisit it. However like much the rest of the gaming community I’m revving my engines in anticipation of the latest COD which drops six days from now. The next Stalker game is due soon as well. In the meantime I’ve been indulging in a second play through of the exceptional Baldur’s Gate and whiling away the occasional hour with Hitman 3.
I should check back to No Man’s Sky, as they’ve released a ton of DLC since I last played.
That reminds me. I haven’t looked at NMS for donkeys. You’re right they have. Gotta give it Hello Games they have certainly put their shoulders to the wheel with NMS.
I come back to NMS every year, having flounced as I lose a base or a Stargate, once a starship freighter with four spacecraft. Not quite what I want in a space exploration game, but getting there. Needs to be more fallout like. Is this why “Star field” is a thing?
Kinda, maybe for some. Starfield has issues. It’s very, very Bethesda and can’t really be considered NMS with a plot(s). It has some surface similarities but it’s very much it’s own thing. I’ve always found NMS is all about a grind but a grind that has no real purpose. I haven’t looked at it for over a year and I’m sure a lot of content will have been added but it will be pretty much as I left it only with a few new bells and whistles added. I expect it will seem even more overstuffed at first glance but in short order will return to feeling disappointingly lacking.
I have a couple of games on the go
Gran Turismo 7. – my favourite game franchise. I’m pretty decent and like the grind. I’m aiming to collect every car in the game. 350 so far.
Star Wars Jedi Survivor – really got into this recently. Would like to finish at some point.
Dead Space Remastered. Difficulty level about right for a fifty something casual gamer. Usually clear what you have to do next, scifi setting, frequent saves. All my touch points.
Hmm, set in space, you say? Shall investigate.
I gave Void Bastards the old college try but it didn’t take, sadly.
A few games I’ve really enjoyed in recent months:
* Dredge – Half cozy gaming deep sea fishing simulator, half Lovecraftian cosmic horror. Pilot your cute little cartoon boat across the waves and from port to port, unravelling local mysteries and trying not to completely lose your mind when the nightmare visions start at night. I enjoyed this enormously, it’s very simple but brilliantly executed and it swings the pendulum nicely between being super chill and genuinely a bit unnerving. Incredibly atmospheric.
* Moving Out – A mate came to visit who has no truck with video games. We needed something to convert him. Turned to this: co-op party game in which you work as a removal company tasked with transporting a range of items out of various buildings and into your truck. Windows are promptly smashed, TVs dropped and communication becomes frantic as you attempt to figure out how to angle the big sofa so you can get it out the door, all as the timer ticks down. It’s not new, but we’ve had loads of fun with it. Mate was fully converted – inside an hour he was animatedly shouting instructions as to how a fridge could be lobbed through a first floor window and caught at ground level. Strong recommend.
* Sifu – A mate turned me on to this: I was dubious at first, but what an incredible game. A love letter to Kung Fu movies and reportedly based on extensive research into the form, Sifu sends you into slums, nightclubs and art galleries to beat seven bells out of the local wrong ‘uns using fists, feet and nearby objects. Its combat is absolutely beautifully realised, it really does send you into a flow state when it all works, and it comes with a wide variety of bonus missions which pay homage to classic martial arts cinema (the Raid, the Matrix, Oldboy, Kill Bill, et al). I played it endlessly this year.
* They Are Billions – I got a bit obsessed with Sifu, to the point where I’d pretty much platinumed it. I needed something to get me to stop playing it. I was at a dinner where someone recommended me They Are Billions, a game in which you build up small towns and then attempt to defend them against wave after wave of zombies. It sounded up my street. I downloaded it, played my first round and immediately knew I was screwed: it was so squarely in my gaming sweet spot as to be scary. Six weeks later, after many late nights of “just five more minutes” I deleted the damn thing. Far too addictive. It’s a brilliant game though; the rounds last 3-4 hours, deaths are permanent with no save files, and you can have built a brilliant city, full of walls, defences, soldiers and guns, only to see it all fall apart in minutes because a single zombie slips past your defences and starts creating more. Massively recommend, with the caveat that I’m not responsible if it eats your life like it ate mine.
I also played VR Power Wash Simulator this week. Absolutely brilliant.
Yep Dredge is fabulous. I played the heck out of it including the DLC. They Are Billions sounds like it’s right up one of my gaming alleys. I shall investigate. Ta.
Hope you enjoy it. Campaign mode is basically a very long tutorial to introduce you to all the different units (by the end you’re stomping the zombie hordes with mech suits and rocket launchers), but Survival is where the meat of the game is.
It may take me some time to get around to it but on further investigation prompted by your good self mentioning it get around to it I will.
Oh, excellent! Let me know how you get on. Second level is absolutely superb from start to finish.
Will do.
coming to the end of Dredge myself. I’ve enjoyed it, but I must say that as far as indie games about catching fish with an unexpected twist go, I did like Dave The Diver more. If you haven’t played it, give it a whirl – it’s a lovely relaxing experience
I have played DTD and really should have included it on this list. What I’ve not done is the DLC with the Dredge content. Must get to that over Christmas.
Speaking of to do lists, have you ventured into the Elden Ring DLC? I’ve surprised myself by not going near it so far – it’s been a busy couple of months and I’m trying to avoid games that will potentially eat my life again. Another one for the festive break.
Dave The Diver gets a release on Xbox on Monday I believe so I’ll take a look if I’m not completely enmeshed in Black Ops 6 by then. I’ve avoided going near it today as I have other stuff to do, listening to the new Tyshawn Sorey Trio album for instance. The Dredge DLC adds another area to explore and fish but not anything dramatically different to the game mechanics. I’ve never played Elden Ring.
I have indeed walked through the valley of the shadow of the Erdtree. The good news is it’s more Elden Ring, but the bad is also that it’s more Elden Ring – nothing feels radically different or fresh. I had a great time with it, but when it was done I was left with a slight feeling of “is that it?” Which is not to suggest that it’s short – it’s very substantial indeed – just that it doesn’t do much to extend the scope of the game. But then the game was great in the first place, so who am I to complain? If From do another game of this ilk I’d like to see them mix up the setting a bit – my dream is Dark Souls In Space….
Ooh some of these look good.
I should have asked you to put platform info in, but then realised there’s like, these, search engines you can use?
Dredge should be on all platforms, as should Moving Out.
Sifu is sadly PC and PS only.
They Are Billions is on everything but the Switch.
Enjoy!
Sifu is available on Xbox and even better it’s on Game Pass. I’m downloading it now.
Finished downloading Sifu a little while ago then whammo a 84.16 gb update for Baldur’s Gate 3 starts to be followed swiftly for patch downloads for Dredge, Diablo IV, Stargate and Call of Duty. Gaming can be a frustrating pastime on occasion.
After a 96+ gb update for Diablo IV I’m now “enjoying” a 125.93 gb download of Call of Duty Black Ops 6 in advance of it’s imminent release courtesy of Game Pass. Time just grinds by. I decided to enliven the afternoon by indulging in a bit of the Irish Plumber and played Veedon Fleece. I’ve moved on from that to Common One and heard all about TS Eliot, William Blake (of course) and others though thankfully it is lyrically free of references to teabagging Ezra Pound. Maybe saving it for a forthcoming skiffle outing.
Oh and I tried with Deathloop but couldn’t face starting again from the beginning every time…
I never made it to the end of Deathloop – somewhere along the way the repetition got to me too. It did, however, introduce me to one of my favourite pieces of music in any video game. This song is just casually playing on the radio in one area you pass through, completely throwaway, but entirely lovely.
Someone at Bethesda has been listening to R.E.M.
If Stipe was the singer it would be indistinuishable.
I seem to be addicted to CoD Modern Warfare III. It’s one of those games where I think “I’ll just have one 10-minute game” and then find myself having one battle after another.
I’ve played most of the CoD games over the years, but the new MW3 just has that special something that keeps me coming back.
Checking my stats, it seems that I’m in the top 22% of players in the world. Considering that I’m probably up against thousands of teens hopped up on Sunny Delight, that makes me stupidly proud.
My other fave is GTA V, which remains the greatest game of all time. Even all these years later, there still seems to be new things to explore.
The amount of griefing and stupid/spoilsport players has been appalling for years, so I often put myself in a solo lobby for a bit of peace. Driving a supercar along the coast road while the sun is setting and Kenny Loggins is queuing up an AOR classic on Los Santos Rock Radio will never get old.
Great, isn’t it? Only today Trevor woke up in his pants on an island, so I took the nearby speedboat up the coast and discovered a whole new side mission involving a sea plane.
Not to piss on anyone’s chips but I can’t play video games, can’t coordinate the controls and have no idea what direction I’m supposed to be moving. I gave up trying years ago, anyone else have this issue?
You are me as I are you. I’m also very glad I am so incompetent – life is way way too short as it is. If I was any good at gaming I am certain that’s all I would do.
Me too. I just can’t get anywhere. I much prefer struggling to play ragtime to trying to play Halo or something.
Not video games but boardgames I played last night:
Ra: A classic design by Reiner Knizia from 1999 that I’d somehow never played. Instant hit with my gaming group.
Heat: Big hit from last year. Car racing game where corner management is critical.
That Time You Tried To Kill Me: Brain melting two-player game that is like chess across three boards, representing past, present and future. So actions you take in one time zone have subsequent consequences.
Zoo Vadis: A refreshed version of another classic Knizia game. Full of negotiation and broken promises. Like most Knizia games, it is elegant but has strategic depth.
I’ve played a couple of these but I really like the sound of That Time You Tried To Kill Me. Will investigate.
No real obsession. I play the Lego games on my older Xbox if I’ve had bad day at work.
What I am thinking very hard about is one of these: https://www.samtronic.co/collections/all-products/products/retro-14-arcade-game-console
I used to love video games. Now I can’t get into them. Attention span or just too busy/disorganised or something in between.
I like the New York Times word games. Wordle, Spelling Bee and Connections. I also occasionally play Block Blast when I have 15 minutes when I don’t have to do something. My daughter made me get it. She is much better than me at it.
Me too – the days when I could regularly land an F/A-18 on an aircraft carrier are long gone. Wordle and Spelling Bee for me too – can’t be bothered with Connections any more.
I play backgammon obsessively, both on the computer and in real life.
I wish I could play chess and backgammon. I know the moves etc but I have no idea of the strategy nor the inclination to put in the time to get any better.
Don’t have the patience for chess, but unlike chess backgammon is 50% luck, depending on the throw of the dice, and games don’t last long. Try True Backgammon HD – you’ll be convinced the game is rigged against you as the computer hammers you yet again, but then you start winning. I now beat the computer over five games about half the time. Not free, but very reasonably priced.
I’ll give it a look. This?
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.compulab.bgmunity
Yes, that’s the one. It’s worth springing an extra quid or so for the tutor.
Cool thanks.
I’m the same. I can’t start the day until I’ve played those 3
Freecell.
Sounds like a first person priso break simulation, but is just a variant of patience.
Obsessed? I term it a mindfulness moment.
When I had the time and inclination, I was obsessed with Gran Tourismo games, but the PlayStation now gathers dust under the telly
I bought a new desktop PC a year or so ago with the aim of getting back into gaming having tired of playing on a PS3. I bought Football Manager 22 and lost interest within a few days – wayyyy too complicated.
Signing back into Steam gave me a chance to revisit Call of Duty 2 and 4 plus Modern Warfare Black Ops and Ghosts. I love single player shooters but am largely awful at them so I need something with an easy mode and plenty of game play for single players – something that is often overlooked. With CoD many many hours flew past. Unfortunately I rendered CoD 2 and 4 useless when I upgraded to 34 inch curved monitor. However, those that still play look splendid. The only one that has underwhelmed was the one with guy from Law and Order SUV as the main character.
Tried GTA V but found it hard to find missions to take on. I must be going something wrong – all advice or links to any guides gratefully received.
Tried Arma, retired hurt and confused. See also Ready or Not
I’ve played the Wolfenstein series over and over as well as Sniper Elite 4 and 5 – the news that there will be a Sniper Elite 6 next year has cheered me up no end.
Any other single player shooter recommendations?
Re GTA V missions. Assuming you’re referring to online/multiplayer, have you tried launching missions on your own? Whenever I can’t find a mission, I’ll start one on my own, and usually other players join up fairly quickly.
Here’s a quick guide:
Thanks – I’ll see what’s suggested although I don’t play online / multiplayer. There were a few missions when I first started the game but they seem to have dried up. Must be something I’m not doing.
Long since past the time when I’d not have a guide onhand on the tablet, after pushing forward and getting hopelessly stuck without it. IGN have pretty reliable online walkthroughs, as I’m not obsessed with 100% stats, just with getting to the end.
I love a FPS @fortuneight but have tired of COD and single player non-online is a vanishing breed.
Destiny can be played as a FPS, I played through one and two, though to the committed its all about clans, raids and coop stuff.
Thanks – I’ll take a look.
I’ve not had a game playing device since the days of ZX Spectrum, but I like finding games on Google Play for my Samsung phone.
Alto’s Odyssey is a sand surfing game that’s stayed with me over multiple phones, and gives a gently exhilarating ride over dunes and waterfalls, accompanied by various desert animals and birds, and rather pleasant unobtrusive background music.
I Love Hue Too is a colour matching game that ambles along harmoniously.
Any other Androud games gratefully received.
A couple of weeks ago I went to the premier of this documentary about the ZX Spectrum: The Rubber Keyed Wonder.
It’s very nicely done, and a lovely walk down Amnesia Avenue for anyone who remembers the deep joy of staring at a pixelated loading screen while a nearby tape deck emitted a series of slightly concerning bleeps and screeches. Lots of old, forgotten favourites onscreen.
Might interest some here.
Thanks, Bingo. That is indeed a reminder of madeleine-level strength! Ant Attack, Atic Atac, as well as, of course, Manic Miner – I never got to the end – all great games.
At school we had BBC Micros and studiously typed in Basic programs (10 TYPE “Fart”; 20 GOTO 10, etc), including those for games from weekly computer magazines. In the corner of the room were a ZX80 and ZX81, black and white frisbees, essentially. I often wondered, if I’d started the course through various programming languages, I could have gone far in this world. But, truth be told, it was all a bit too dull and nerdy. I needed pop music and fashion magazines.
Too many evening watching maths and physics geeks working their way through the space travelling game ‘Elite’.
Hardly anyone got to the end of those games, they were impossible!
It’s interesting you mention the BBC: it remains a massive source of irritation for a lot of British programmers of a certain age that the BBC found its way into classrooms rather than the Spectrum. In fact, I’ve heard at least one person refer to it as the biggest missed opportunity in the modern history of British tech. The Spectrum was a far easier machine on which to learn to code, much more user friendly (load noises aside).
I actually know one of the guys who made Elite, and in my first proper job I worked for one of the people who ported it to the Acorn. He had a big Elite poster in his office: it’s one of the reasons I wanted to work for him, although there were lots of others. An absolutely incredible game, given the resources of the time.
I certainly never finished Manic Miner and I don’t know anyone who did. I loved Elite and played it till my thumbs went numb. My absolute favourites from those dim and distant days though were Infocom and Level 9 text adventures. Go West. You are stood before an imposing stone door. Unlock Door. You don’t have the key. Hit door with sword. You don’t have the sword. Smash head against door in frustration. You are dead. Happy days.
I was a sucker for Ocean’s movie tie-ins: loved the Batman and Robocop games, and the geometric Batman puzzle game too. Spent a lot of time on Yie-Ar Kung-Fu, Gauntlet, School Daze and Captain Blood.
I also really enjoyed some of the budget games labels of the time: you could pick up a cassette for a pound or two and generally get your pocket money’s worth.
It’s bizarre going back and playing these games now. So much of the joy was in letting your imagination fill in the gaps, and imagining what games would look like in future. And now we know: lots of updates to download!
Ah, text-based adventures – the digital step up from Steve Jackson and Jan Livingstone ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ books. I remember The Hobbit on the Spectrum, which was text-based, with the added feature of images that would ever-so-slowly fill the screen, line-by-line.
I did my Masters project (speech synthesis) on a BBC computer and wrote up the thesis on same. Huge advantage over the Spectrum was a very good keyboard and opportunities to interface and control external hardware with it. I think the loading of programs from floppy discs was also very important. So I disagree, Spectrum won the gaming battle though, not sure the BBC was ever really intended for that though.
Well, no one was ever going to praise that Speccy keyboard, that’s for sure.
Ironically, the Spectrum wasn’t primarily intended for gaming either – in fact, it was a source of some irritation to its originator that it became synonymous with the stuff.
The movie gets into all this stuff, it’s worth a watch.
I found the feel of that dead man’s flesh keyboard kinda arousing.
This area, the movie stays well away from 🙂
Probably saving it for the inevitable sequel.
ZXXX Spectrum: The Rubber Keyed Delight.
With added footage from Bob Cuccione.
I had a Spectrum+ with a so called proper plastic keyboard. It was terrible too though
That’s the one I had too. Some of my mates had the rubber keyboard, so managed to get a go round their houses. Always coveted the 128k with the integrated cassette player. So sophisticated.
I just read Dominic Sandbrook’s Who Dares Wins, which covers the early 80s. I came away with the feeling that Sinclair not getting the schools contract was a missed opportunity simply because they would have been able to scale up and meet the demand, which Acorn completely underestimated. You feel that the UK computing industry missed an opportunity in the early 80s because it was a large number of small companies run by eccentric loners in university business parks.
Yep, that’s the gist. There’s also a feeling that it made no sense for a generation of kids who (largely) had Spectrums at home to be taught at school on a different device – it made it less likely they’d go home and continue to experiment.
The eccentric loners observation is spot on.
Jings, reading all this, it sounds as if gaming belongs with the other 2 gs, gambling and gaspers, as something I’m grateful never to have wanted to try. I’d sooner spend all that time thinking of things I could have done if I hadn’t spent all that time glad that I hadn’t.
On the whole I think you’re wise. There was a time a decade or two ago, when I tried playing Sim City and The Sims. It was frightening how quickly whole days would disappear while I was on my own and waiting for buildings or characters to grow or develop. One moment I was walking up and just starting a map of a virtual London, the next minute it was evening and the buildings were starting to grow. I looked up again and it was after midnight and I was choosing advanced power sources for my virtual metropolis.
I’ve done the same too, but I don’t get the regret part. If you’re happy doing it why punish yourself with thoughts that you could have spent the time doing other things?
It’s the inner Puritan inside the inner Quaker inside me. Complicated.
It’s just a hobby, a pastime no different to filling every available space in a room with vastly overpriced box sets of music that will get listened to once or maybe twice before being left to gather dust on a shelf displayed in much the same way that some despicable bastards display the heads of the animals they have shot as a “sport”. Just another way of filling in the empty hours as a distraction from staring into the abysmal depths of the void, a relief from the knowledge of the creeping inevitably of our certain deaths and the blind panic of remorseless despair at the realisation of ones imminent bodily dissolution. Writing clunky overly long and circuitous sentences for no real purpose and just for shits and giggles is another.
There is that, of course, though as an ex-Goth (can one ever really stop), I find the contemplation of my own inevitable death something to strive to achieve without the associated panic and fear.
The Sims, in particular, wasn’t the best way to avoid that glimpse at mortality. All the characters created needed to be provided with entertainment to keep their mood up, otherwise they would burst into tears. And the only way to get rid of them (after farming them to generate wealth), was to brick them up until they, (excuse the savagery), lost control of their bowels and turned into a gravestone, which ironically could be sold for profit.
Not exactly shits and giggles, but pretty close to it.
I bet you’re wearing mascara ain’t ya.
I don’t go out in the morning before dipping my fizog in a bowl of McDougalls flour and backcombing my remaining black dyed follicles.
I suspected as much.
Call back
Well, this escalated quickly.
Top popstar Raye (“the Escapism singer”) gets her kicks by playing Mario Kart:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdrjrljx1dzo
I don’t blame her. I’m new to Mario Kart because I never had anything Nintendo back when I had consoles, but my six year old likes to play it on his uncle’s Nintendo Switch and I’m now a complete convert. What a game. I’m amazed at some of the thought that goes into the more elaborate tracks. They make that Doctor Strange film look like Plan 9 From Outer Space.
I love Mario Kart and became obsessed with it during lockdown.
The game I play most nowadays is a simple chess game called “Really bad chess” by Zac Gage where you are given seemingly random pieces. Its free version is perfectly OK and works offline too. I have played it for hours on long flights.
You are playing a computer, obviously, so if you are given 4 queens and your opponent has just the one, this doesn’t necessarily mean you win.