Talking point: what have you been playing recently?

Started playing Serious Sam 3 coop campaign with some friends. Actually pretty fun ;)

Mainly F1 2020 with my 3D printed "racing wheel support" for my Steam Controller. For about 50$, it's much better than just holding the SC in my hands and much more precise than I anticipated. Pretty statisfied with that thing.

Too hot to play anything that would tax my computers so I have just been playing Klondike and FreeCell through AisleRiot this weekend.

I've finally gotten around to try a classic series: Myst !

I've been on a bit of a point-and-click spree those past few months, starting with Quern then replaying all The Room games. It was only natural to continue with the franchise that pretty much kick-started the genre.

I am almost at the end of the 4th game, without any external help so far. Hoping I can keep that going for the final game.

And yes, I'm playing on Linux with Proton All games have worked out-of-the box so far except one (I think it was Myst 3) that required a bit of tweakery. ProtonDB was very helpful for that, as always.

I have been solely playing Magic: Legends on Heroic game launcher. Pretty much addictive !

Here are some of the games I've played recently:

Nuclear Throne: This is a really excellent twin-stick shooter, *best* played with a gamepad. But I'm not a big fan of gamepads, so I instantly put myself at a major disadvantage by playing it with keyboard and mouse. In the past week, I finally unlocked the Steroids character - I'm still a long way from completing the game, but gradually getting closer. The game is frustratingly hard (with K+M) but I just can't help coming back for another punishing serving.

Prodeus: This game is due to come to Linux (once it is out of Early Access). It is a retro-styled Doom/Quake FPS. I absolutely adored it during the beta playtest. Bought it a week ago (20% Humble Choice discount, before pausing HC) and installed it immediately (via Proton) - only 1.2GB drive space. I've played through a few levels so far, and loving it.

7 Days To Die: At this point I've put about 2.5k hours into this game, and it is a big favourite of mine. Regularly, I watch a number of Youtubers playing this game, and feel that despite their immense hours of playing, they always set the game *way* too easy for their videos. The game is a sandbox survival experience - You surviving in a zombie apocalypse in a destructible, buildable environment.

Here are my latest Game Difficulty Settings that I'm using to play 7 Days To Die - I call this the Ultimate Nightmare Challenge:

- Zombies set to run at Nightmare Speed all the time (the maximum).
- Zombies set to Insane Toughness (the maximum).
- Loot Abundance set to 25 percent (the minimum). [THIS SETTING MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE!]
- Random Generated World (you don't know where you are).
- Concurrent Zombies during Horde Night: 64 (the maximum). [As each zombie is 'killed' another one spawns to replace it.]
- The rest of the settings on defaults (e.g. Air drops don't display on map, Horde Night every 7 days, regular experience gain, etc).
- Playing it Permadeath, i.e. only one life, and if you die that's it with your game (no resurrecting).
- Not using any game exploits to 'cheese' the horde.

With this U.N. challenge you need to play very efficiently and make very careful choices, as well as doing so while dealing with extremely fast, extremely hard-to-kill, and extremely hard-hitting zombies. Running out of food is very easy, not having enough medical help, having practically no good weapons/armour, finding practically no ammo in loot. All these difficulties compound with one another, it is easy enough playing with one of these things put on hardest value, but when you put them all on hardest, then it really is a struggle particularly during the first week of play - In my opinion the first week of the game is the best bit. WOULD LOVE TO SEE A YOUTUBER PLAYING 7 DAYS WITH *THESE* SETTINGS !!! (UNLIKELY!)


Last edited by g000h on 28 June 2021 at 5:27 am UTC

Splody - itch.io

PVE and PVP Bomberman clone done right!

Online I've been playing the following with friends and family

Preach! There hasn't been a decent Bomberman clone on PC since Atomic. Splody actually has all the bells and whistles.

As for me, I've been getting back into Faeria. Of course, being the social butterfly that I most certainly am, I've just been playing the single player stuff, which is surprisingly extensive for a multiplayer-based CCG.

I'have buy the infinity bundle on Steam for the summer sale, so i'm making all the baldur's gate games. :)

Been playing the latest update Alpha of Postal 4, sorted the C++ Redist issue, its hilarious Mobility Scooter racing. Also found with the latest Proton, and the Nvidia 470 beta driver Quake 2 RTX worked in Steam, seens as good FPS as native version, Amid Evil won;'t work with RT as yet though, also getting into metro Exodus .

A friend introduced me to CrossCode back in April or so which I picked up in May, and I've been absolutely loving it (despite action-adventure RPGs not normally being my "thing")—this is seriously one of the best stories I've experienced in a game. And the twists are what make it great, so I can't even gush about the plot. I guess I can applaud the devs for adding some very comprehensive difficulty sliders to make their game more accessible to more people (it's got quite a high skill ceiling and is not easy at the default) and having a native Linux version.

I've almost finished a point and click adventure called Lost Horizons (via Proton). It's an Indiana Jones kind of thing - stop the Nazis from unlocking the power of an ancient Tibetan artifact. It's well produced and a decent plot, but I am spending a fair bit of time trying to click every inventory item on every other thing to progress the story. Typical of this genre I suppose.

My son is playing Factorio with me. It's the first computer game he actually enjoys :-)
Been playing that, and pretty much only that the last two months!

I feel you. I've mostly been playing Mindustry lately, alone and with friends. I have a lot on my backlog though, half-started, half-finished. I think I'm going to go back and try to finish Bayonetta and Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice next. Nier: Automata too :P

Also some local co-op games when I have some friends over: Boomerang-Fu was a pleasant surprise from the Humble Choice. Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris, Magicka 2. It's a shame Halo MCC doesn't have splitscreen, but I'll revisit the campaign now that there's a workaround for achievements.

Recently,

Serious Sam 3 VR: BFE just picked this up to get back into some VR.

How is it? Reviews seemed to be rather mixed.

The Saboteur. Tron2.0. Warcraft 1&2. Outlaws. Couldn't get Crusader: No Remorse working on my laptop, but I've already got too many games on the main rig. Haven't played it since the 90's so I'll install it after I clear a few.

I did not remember Warcraft 1 being THAT clunky. But hey, Intel Core2Duo + Intel onbard graphics can mostly handle DOS era games via DOSBox.

I think from here I'm going to finish Steelrats, start Cloudpunk, and finish Overload. Then Aragami. Then Lena's Inception.

Oh, and I fired up Farcry 4. It's much better than I remembered it, but it still somehow manages not to be as engaging as FC3.

Recently,

Serious Sam 3 VR: BFE just picked this up to get back into some VR.

How is it? Reviews seemed to be rather mixed.

Mixed from me so far as well. I have played through the regular version a few years ago. My feeling so far is that I would just rather go back to keyboard/mouse/monitor. It could be more that I am used to those controls and I feel handicapped with VR. Plus since it is mainly just a port, a game like Half Life: Alyx where the game was built specifically for VR is just a way better VR experience. Not that comparable of game style, but is the most recent VR game I played.