I‘m playing Bowser‘s Fury while waiting for some AFK grind in Core Keeper to finish for that sweet, sweet platinum.

Core Keeper‘s a really good game, the 100-skill-point-grind‘s gotta be the bane of any achievement hunter, though. Anyway, I recommend anyone who liked the likes of Starbound to give it a look.

I‘ve also finished Mario Kart World (not so patient) this week and went back to MK8 to check if it‘s nostalgia but nope, I really think 8 is so much better. A tip for anyone having trouble to three star on 150cc: Stop drifting. The game adjusts difficulty by the amount you drift. If you don‘t drift the AI stops being absolute rubberbanding BS. And you can press dpad down to rewind. If you do that before a blue shell hits, you can avoid the hit.

I‘ve also „finished“ PUBG with a friend of mine this week. It‘s a really fun game but also… so sweaty at this point that even low elo will likely absolutely smoke you. Can‘t really recommend it unless you wanna spend a long time in training to be able to keep up eventually. There‘s three casual games a day where 88% of the lobby is bots, so you get to shoot at someone without getting insta headshot back, so that‘s fun at least.

I played super tux kart (or any kind of cart racing game for that matter) and had a great time

Finished up Darks Souls 3. There was the odd annoying area or enemy but overall I enjoyed myself quite well. It did not feel like the pinnacle of the Dark Souls experience like I have heard it described as, just more Dark Souls. Which is fine but I won’t start a NG+ anytime soon I think.

Splatoon 3

Great game

Mass Effect Legendary Edition!

The Alters has been insanely fun the last week or so. Pretty interesting science fiction space survival, resource gathering, base building. Some of the mechanics around quantum computing is quite unique.

Blasphemous! Slept too long on this one, its really good, love the lore, and it’s not too hard

I finished Deus Ex: Mankind Divided this week, and I’m now trying to decide whether I want to push through the DLCs or not. I’m kind of done with the game but if I don’t do them now I probably never will.

Overall I found MD to be good, but uneven. The main story overall suffers immensely from being the second game in a planned trilogy, but the side content is very very good. Gameplay was a step up from Human Revolution in most regards and there were some pretty good level designs strewn around as well. The final mission felt absolutely awesome to me and was one of my favourite Deus Ex missions, and Golem City was another highlight. The running theme of apartheid was also extremely well executed and the climax to that arc with martial law at the end felt very impactful.

Overall I think Human Revolution is probably better as it’s a more self contained and complete experience, but the highs of Mankind Divided are definitely higher than those of HR, in my opinion.

Hitman Absolution

Completely ignoring the plot in Fallout 4 as I help yet another settlement

old world, which I got for €10 in the GOG sale. I wanted something like the OG civ experience, where you slowly build up your civilisation, creating a network of cities with good transport links, strong agriculture supporting healthy growth, then, when the bloodlust gets too strong to ignore, building small military forces to go out and crush your neighbours.

I’m enjoying myself so far. The game does seem like a more straightforward and casual Civ - the learning curve is so gentle and you don’t feel like you’re overloaded with admin details that you can’t keep track of. Last time I played Civ, it was Civ 6 and it was fun until a rival civilisation plonked a city down right in the middle of one of my own conglomerations. Perfect excuse for kicking some ass, so I assembled a little force and invaded the city to kick it out. Unfortunately you can’t just declare war and get away with it, and there were a lot of side-effects to contend with, such as becoming a pariah on the world stage affecting trade. War was just not economically viable, and while that might be realistic for some time periods, it just wasn’t the game I wanted to play.

So I am happy with old world. It’s pretty much what I wanted so far - but will the simpler mechanics make the game less replayable? It may well do, but I’m enjoying it for now. Above all, what I like about these sorts of games - zero time pressure. I can take as long as I like on each turn, there’s absolutely no rush to decide what to do, I’m free to bimble about and make sure I’ve not forgotten anything.

Playing the last of us part 1 for the first time, about 10 hours in

CTA Gates of Hell Ostfront

I’ve been going through the campaign mission on hard and hardcore which requires a lot of micromanagement and they take ages to complete!

Back on my OG DooM bullshit. I gave Almalgoom a go and it inspired me to get back into mapping again after about 30 years.

Giving Outer Wilds another go from a new save. I played 5 years ago but got stuck and gave up.