Gaming

Been playing Zelda, Tears of the kingdom. I’ve blocked all the relevant keywords as to not get spoiled, but now the game is out for quite a bit of time and people are just posting vids and memes without spoilers messages of the keywords. It’s such a huge and beautiful game and I want to explore it on my own time, but I’m scared it’s a race against the clock before I get a spoiler on something.

I finally found a way to end my inability to stop playing WoW after 18+ years of it. I didn't consider myself "addicted" - as I am able to maintain career & family, it was more about it meant I didn't play any other game. I ended the issue by requesting a "private information removal" - which hard-deletes every aspect of your entire battle.net account. Gone. 13,000 hours and it feels great. I also don't feel like I "lost" anything. When you see a 2 hour movie, but then you leave the theatre when it's over - do you regret spending 2 hours? No, you don't.

AAAAnd the very next act I took was to make a new Battle.net account to play Diablo4. The wheel of time, and all.

In other thoughts, I don't expect D4 to be forever, and I look forward to smaller/indie games on Steam. Looks like I need to try Dwarf Fortress, RimWorld, and others.

I just got back from an arcade bar, where I played a bunch of retro games like Frogger, Q-Bert, Tetris, Street Fighter II, you get the vibe.

It's so fascinating playing these old cornerstones of the gaming industry and thinking of how much video games have morphed over their history. The first thing that comes to mind is how the way we think of gameplay has completely changed; these old arcade cabinets have very simple but entirely unforgiving mechanics, whereas nowadays I feel like I need two tutorials and a read-through of a manual before I can approach a game, but once you get the hang of a game's particularities stuff gets easier in a way?

Like, the premise of Frogger is exceedingly simple; cross the street without getting killed. The challenge comes from the mechanics. Stuff gets faster, things are more hectic, you have less time to calculate your next move.

Whereas modern game mechanics are kinda smoothed out. There are less pixel-perfect maneuvers and places where timing is important, there's a bigger emphasis on exploration, figuring things out, interacting with the game world. Like just think of the differences between the original Super Mario Bros' gameplay and say Super Mario Odyssey. I'm not saying one style is better than the other, I definitely enjoy both retro and modern games, but the different priorities as preferences and technology evolved over time are immensely fascinating to me.

I'm just... tired of these "pre-order" stuff. Like you'll be sure that you'll get a product that's worth it when the thing comes out.

I’m kind of in a spur of playing or replaying older games. Replayed Fallout 1 recently and I’m doing a low intelligence build for the first time ever.

Debating playing VTM Bloodlines or the original Deus Ex, because this is a sin- I’ve never played either.

I'm feeling frustrated by games that don't respect my time. Don't play the same 30s animation every time I perform a minor action that I'm required to perform 10s or 100s of times, often in quick succession. At least have a skip button at a minimum!

Also, give me all of the information I need to make informed decisions, and make them intuitive!

I feel super stagnated when it comes to games anymore. I still want to play but I only ever seem to play the same 2 games which are positively ancient now. I have tried to chip away at my backlog, but I will play for one night and then go right back to my comfy games even if I enjoyed it. Then if I want to try again I have to start over from scratch because too much time will have passed and I can't remember the controls or what I was doing, so it's back to the comfy games again because at least I won't get frustrated.

Maybe I need to try some very short games or something? But also maybe I am just being too picky! I look for things that I think would scratch the same itch as my comfy games but haven't found anything that gets close enough (yet!). I just want to have fun why do I have to make this so difficult?! >_<

It feels almost petty to mention, but my main problem with gaming these days is choice... there's just too much. I have a SteamDeck packed with over a decade of Humble Bundles and giveaways. I have a MiSTer FPGA with 10,000 retro games. I have subscriptions throwing me more games in a month than I could play in a year... and amid all that choice, I found I was playing none of it.

So I've taken steps. On retro devices, I've taken to removing the full ROM sets (or hiding them from view) and just selecting a handful of games that I used to own, or definitely want to play. In Steam, I've started a collection list of games I'm interested in and I only ever pick from that.

And, somehow, it works. Seeing only three or four games to choose from somehow short circuits that panic response of seeing three or four thousand. It's easier to fixate on a game, or to find something to genuinely enjoy about a title that may not be that perfect experience otherwise, rather than discarding it quickly and moving on to the next fleeting thrill.

Gaming-wise, I'm honestly having a great time. I think there's never been a better time for gaming. Yes, it's true that a lot of newer games have horrible micro-transactions practices, but there's also newer games that don't do this, there's always older games that can be played, leaked builds of games that you might have thought would have never existed (like Gears of War 3 on PC) which are actually quite fun to play and there's more game mods now than ever before. I think this is kind of the golden age of gaming in it's own way.

Finally started playing Mass Effect legendary. It surely lives up to it's hype. The combat is nifty, but the dialogue and choices are super fun.

Also playing Dysmantle with my partner. It's simple but very cathartic and mindless. It's got issues but overall very worth playing. Especially couch coop.

I'm kind of tired of triple AAA games right now. So much crap out there. Not sure if it's an issue of sucking the gaming industry dry or what but buhhh. There are outliers but it's pretty exhausting.. however emulation has never been better. I downloaded some OG Pikmin, Mario, etc and been playing through them and having a blast. Such an interesting time that a raspberry pi 4 can play a ton of the oldest games for "free" and the new stuff kind of gets forgotten about in 6 months.

Big thing for me recently has been quitting Destiny 2. I've invested an...embarrassing amount of time into that game and while there's zero regret about the friends I made and the good times I've had, the game has just progressively moved further and further away from what I enjoyed about it. It's just not something I feel the same way about anymore. Feels weird(but not bad) no longer being tied down to a "main" game.

...but yeah, been nice to catch up on some single player stuff. Playing Tears of the Kingdom quite a bit but Diablo IV is really hitting that loot dopamine part of my brain Destiny did so that's the main thing right now.

Overwhelmed honestly

Jedi fallen survivor Totk Many I haven’t finished (horizon, gow)

I watch/listen to a bunch of gaming video essays which help me get a good fix. Been playing ToTK which has been great fun and have been all over Timberborn recently.

There's so much to play these days, so I have a hard stance against anything with microtransactions.

So, Breath of the Wild is my favorite video game of all time, and Tears of the Kingdom is BotW+++, so I'm doing great game wise. I also started Diablo 4 last night and so far I love it. It's like if they took Diablo 2, then added in only the good parts of Diablo 3. I might change my tune as I continue, but so far I'm loving it. I'm still enjoying my daily Marvel Snap addiction, but I've gone from regular sitting in the 70s to struggling to break out of the 40s. But still fun, even if I lose, which is a mark of a good game.

Tears of the Kingdom has been consuming my life at the moment. I have the final boss mission ready to go but havne't commited to that yet. I want to explore more before "finishing" the game

Then I'll follow it up with the Outer Wilds DLC

After that I want to dedicate myself to some platformers and indie games that everyone recommends.

Honestly, feel like I'm in a good place gaming-wise, just planning ahead so there isn't a vacant hole in my life when I finish ToTK

Pretty good. Started gaming in the 80s, so my perspective includes cabinets, consoles, and PC gaming. I have more than enough in my queue to keep me going. Barely touched Shadowrun, Cyberpunk. Still playing lots of THPS, Salt and Sanctuary, Skyrim, and Hot Wheels Unleashed (I have a 4yo son who loves that shit).

Alternating between Tears of the Kingdom and Vampire Survivors.

I have a backlog but TotK is what I’m playing and a little Diablo 4. I wish I had more time!

I picked up Pathfinder: Kingmaker after a very long hiatus and I'm enjoying it a lot once I decided to lower the difficulty so I can focus on the story and not on the intricate ruleset.

My favorite part is the kingdom management.

I'm just happy that there are a couple games in looking forward to this year. Helldivers 2 and bomb rush cyberfunk. I'm delighted with the first, and honestly kind of concerned with the second. They haven't released any new trailers, teasers, or spoilers in what feels like years and I think it might have stalled out development wise.. But it's supposed to release in August.

Helldivers 2 on the other hand looks impressive, and because of the dev team I have zero concerns on the quality of gameplay or overall feel of the setting. It just doesn't have a firm release date yet.. Some time this year.

Playing Pathfinder:wotr and The Outer World, havin' a blast.

I was focusing on Overload a bit, which I've found to be a fun homage or spiritual sequel or successor or whatever to Descent. It does a pretty good job of addressing the problems of players potentially getting lost and disoriented in complicated 3d spaces, and it absolutely preserves the fun of wandering around, trying to spot robots before they're already firing at you, and then frenetically blowing them up. Lots of fun exploring and poking around for secrets and figuring out how to win fights. I feel like I'm only okay at it, I'm playing on a medium-ish difficulty and taking significant advantage of save-anywhere to decide I didn't actually screw up that last fight that badly, but I'm having fun anyway. A bit daunted by how difficult some of the later levels are turning out to be, though..

Anyway, I was doing all of that - plus other things, I have a bunch of gaming balls in the air right now - but then No Man's Sky had a new expedition come out. I only got the game in the last year or two and haven't been interested in it at the same time as an expedition happened, so I spent last night focusing on it. It seems okay? It's nice that my knowledge of the game allows me to render some tasks that might be arduous completely trivial, like knowing exactly what weapon to go fetch and what to do to get my hands on a quad servo fairly quickly. I think I spent too much time early on just getting a bunch of basic supplies lined up, but now I'm moving through everything pretty quickly so maybe that was correct and has paid off; I'm definitely overthinking the experience a bit. It doesn't really seem like that big of a deal, overall - it's not a major transformation of the game or anything, it winds up being what it says on the tin, just a quest line to go do to unlock some cool stuff. The cool stuff is actually mildly appealing to me, which is nice and a bit unusual.

I can go on, I found a novel (to me, anyway) way to break Chronicon a few days ago, but I think that's the appropriate amount of rambling.

I'm hesitant to buy games at full price these days, but I had a bad day last weekend and bought the Resident Evil 4 remake on a whim, and I love it. Not looking forward to beating it, because then I'll be in the void again where I can't find anything to play.

I'm reading pc gaming mag because I've no energy to actually play a game.

I've been playing around with Dyson Sphere Program a bit. It's basically a factorio/crafting game based on creating a namesake Dyson Sphere.

I'm not the best with crafting games so ive been looking up some build guides and good god. Some people are nuts with these setups. It's insanely efficient and mapped out.

I got sucked in last night and next thing I know it's 1am and my "Hey nerd, you're way past when you should've gone to sleep" notification went off. It's really good.

YouTube has been helping my gaming fix. But digging Diablo 4 at the moment. I'm excited for the Xbox showcase since it will be all gameplay trailers verse CGI which shows nothing besides what the game could look like. This year has been great I think game wise. Harry Potter was great, started Jedi Survivor, Pokemon I ran through non-stop (yes it is a mess but I do love Pokemon a lot). Funny enough for Stalker Gamma, that mod got me into Stalker, super excited for Stalker 2

I miss games that were just fun. I was on PTO last week and at one point I had two idle games on my desktop while I was playing Puzzle Quest 3 (also free-to-play and I was aggressively approaching the pay-to-win wall). I hate how addictive those games are but I keep coming back until I'm bored stiff and they're still not getting a single penny out of me.

When I finally put those down, I moved to Diablo IV which is a mindless hack-and-slash with a too-complicated-to-figure-out skill tree. I don't even know what most of the skills are, the descriptions are too jargony to make any sense, but they're upgrades so they must be good, right?

I've played every game in the franchise but It's been years since I actively enjoyed Assassin's Creed. It'd been slowly downhill since Brotherhood (temporarily ignoring the garbage fire that was ACIII) but it really took a nosedive when it also became just another a hack-and-slash occasionally interrupted by a story that I never cared about. Actually, I can't tell you a single thing that happened in any of the AC stories ... except beating up the pope at the end of ACII. That was fun. Aside from that, the storyline in any game is pretty much lost on me. Don't care, never will. Just tell me what I need to know in a little box in the corner.