everynowandben

@Tdx Definitely not at all a boomer shooter.

Great game. Beat it a few months ago on PC. Its pretty tough though, especially at the beginning. Very punishing.

I'll probably get this on Steam tbh, but I am super excited for it! I liked Octopath 1 just fine, but 2 was an absolute masterpiece imo.

I played about an hour of it yesterday and was having a blast with it. Took a break to work on one of my songs, and then suddenly it was 8 hours later and I needed to get to bed haha.. Should be able to play more tomorrow though.

@Markatron84 Small subset of people? Hollow Knight sold 15 million copies, not to mention it's popularity on various subscription services.

I finished Cyberpunk's Phantom Liberty DLC last night and enjoyed it. I wish the whole game was more of an immersive sim, but its obviously okay that it isn't - still had a great time with it. I played the whole thing guns blazing and never faced any kind of "wall" where a different playstyle would have helped or made anything easier or more fun. Wish there was more incentive to do the netrunning stuff or stealth around or both. By the end, I had so many skill points just sitting there and nothing that seemed interesting to invest in. Still disappointed that the new Deus Ex was cancelled.

Next up I'm diving into Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines. The sequel comes out on my birthday, and even if it doesn't review well, I'm still going to get it. So, I want to play through the original game first, but I cant start it until late tonight or tomorrow. If anyone reads this today and has a suggestion for a starting class in the original game, let me know which is the most fun and why.

Yesterday I finished Corpus Edax and started Brush Burial. Both indie immersive sims. Corpus Edax was pretty good, but kinda fell apart at the end in the sense that it seemed a bit rushed and less thoroughly designed. I have no idea how the experience system works outside of finding permanent buffs in the environment - seems like certain objectives just give you points. I failed the final stat check by 1 point because I kept boosting strength over the rest, so I Dark Messiah kicked the final boss into infinity, but I also got the "bad ending." Oh well. Very cool game overall. So far Brush Burial is pretty cool too, although the respawning enemies gives me almost 0 reason to play stealthy or engage in combat at all so basically just ran around jumping and sliding all over the place until I finished the first area. Edit: I just finished Brush Burial. Talk about falling apart at the end...

Its not really a "Souls-like" in my opinion. There are influences, sure, but personally I would just call it an action RPG. I am not a fan of Souls games at all, and Wukong was my 2024 goty. Just saying.

Still playing Skin Deep on PC. Nearing the end now. I saw a couple reviews that said the "combat" doesn't really change over the course of the game and I have to (mostly) disagree, and the game isn't long enough to wear out its welcome anyway. If you're into immersive sims, I would definitely recommend it.

I finished Blood West on Friday night and jumped into Skin Deep.

Hoping someone will eventually make a first person perspective mod similar to the one for Weird West. Personally I just cant get into games with a perspective like this.

I did not like the "humor" at all, outside of one or two specific jokes that were actually funny, but, I thought the gun mechanics were super fun and unique and in the end I'm very glad I played through the game and the DLC. Looking forward to the sequel.

Highly recommend My Friendly Neighborhood to any fans of Resident Evil.

@Ramouz I tried it out last night on PC and it worked out like a dream. I mapped the face buttons to be a dpad, and had it so holding the trigger as a shift key made the dpad turn into a, b, x, and y. It helped too that the mouse I use also has mappable buttons, particularly for jumping. I haven't tried it out on Xbox yet though.

@xboxjapanfan Good thing I don't play too many competitive games ...

I just bought this hoping it will work for the half controller half mouse combo I've been dreaming and waiting my whole life for.

Just a bit of Indiana Jones for me this weekend

I haven't played much in the last month and some outside of Mario Kart with my daughter (who has recently been obsessed with it) while I've been working on music, but I have been playing a bit of Indiana Jones, and I'm really liking it. Just got through the Vatican and looking forward to seeing more of what comes next.

This year on GP I've played (that I didnt already own):
-Amnesia: Rebirth
-Bluey
-COD: BO6
-Close to the Sun
-Dead Island 2
-Hellblade 2
-High on Life
-Indiana Jones (will play day one)
-Octopath Traveler 2
-Peppa Pig
-Quake
-Quake 4
-Sea of Thieves
-Still Wakes the Deep
-Warhammer 40k: Boltgun
-Warhammer 40k: Datktide
-Wolfenstein: The Old Blood
-Wolfenstein: Youngblood
-WWZ: Aftermath
-Zombie Army 4: Dead War

Pretty good year for Game Pass for me, but certainly not the best it's ever been.

I put a bunch of other games on hold because I got Astro Bot and now I don't want to play anything else.

Last night I bought Sorry We're Closed and planning on firing that up today. Looks like it could be just the game I need right now.

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.