Weekly Recommendations Thread: What are you playing this week?

Jumped into Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous a couple weeks ago. Was a bit concerned at first because I enjoyed Kingmaker and kept hearing this one was better, but I was not feeling it. Then the end of the first chapter hit and the hook set in deep. I'm not far in, but the scope of this story is already really impressive. I feel like this is the kind of thing that's too ambitious for me to ever have a chance at playing in tabletop (not without a really experienced DM and group, anyway), so it's cool that this story can be experienced in this way.

I've heard such disparate opinions of WotR, I'm very interested to see what I feel about it whenever I get to it. I played Kingmaker over Christmas and while I really enjoyed parts of it I was also endlessly frustrated about many things. And some things I've heard make me anxious about the sequel too. I'm also very concerned about the scale and scope - I enjoyed the more grounded narrative and setting of KM and worry I'll have trouble getting onboard with being a Chosen One and battling gods and other epic narratives and whatnot.

Art of Rally

I've been playing it regularly this week and the replay/ photo mode is very satisfying when you put together a nice sequence of corners. I wish there was more of an online element though with clubs and/or custom challenges but it's still a lot of fun.

Wuch a cosy yet hard game! I'm looking forward to funselektor's offroad game that's coming up

I’ve been playing Terra Invicta on PC and Surviving Mars on console. I watched the Firefly blue ghost moon landing a few days ago and needless to say I’m starting my sci-fi kick again

Terra Invicta has been on my wishlist for a while now but I've been holding off because a) I sometimes avoid early access and b) the learning curve sounds brutal. Sounds like it'd be right up my alley if I got into it, though.

Surviving Mars is delightfully chill. Amazing soundtrack, too.
- Much Like Stellaris, you’ll need a solid 5-10 hours before things start making sense in Terra Invicta. Cheers!

I'm back to my semi-regular return to The Division, this time the first game. I don't know why this series clicked with me the way it did as I don't really play these kind of looter shooters but for some reason I tend to come back to them every year or two.

I'm lucky enough I don't care about min-maxing and number crunching so no matter the patch and balance I end up having a blast and that's all that matters. Now if only we could get the first game on TD2's engine...

I also go back to the first The Division game every so often. The snow covered city is beautiful and one of my all time favourites.

The Division 2 is kind of meh in comparison.
- I actually switch between the two depending on my mood. I really like the technical and (some of the) gameplay changes as they make the gameplay a bit more fun for me (especially everything that has to do with enemy armour) but story and atmosphere wise, as well as in terms of the map I definitely prefer the first game.
  
  Heck, I'm even willing to run around the Dark Zone there unlike in the sequel where I popped in a few times and called it quits. It's just not the same.

Punch-Out! for Wii

Pretty fun so far!

The Wii was perfect for boxing games. Now I’ve got the itch to dig mine out!

Thinking I'll give Veilguard a go since it's free on PS Plus now.

I know it's not been received well, but figure I'll form my own opinion.

Still playing Avowed. Fucking great game. I’m a little over half way through.

Mad Max.

Starsector,

Recommended from the sseth video, and it doesn't disappoint. Seems the options are limited only by your imagination. The economy is crazy.

So many ships and customisation. It's very much in the vein of mount and blade, which is my most played game.

I'm still playing Baldur's Gate 3 for the past several months, over 100 hours in and barely in act 2, such a huge game.

I also finally got around to actually digging into Factorio last week and I think it may become a new addiction. I'm still early game trying to figure out how to make green science more efficiently and also gotta rebuild a portion of my factory after getting attacked last night. I might start a new save with no enemies to get a hang of the factory part in peace.

if anyone is looking for a rich and competitive MMO, i can highly recommend Albion Online!

Slowly grinding my way through Sifu on Master difficulty.

I've rage quited this game. Reached last boss though
- I've been through a rage quit and a 'got bored of not progressing' quit, but I've kept coming back to the game. I've finished the game on the normal difficulty, still on and off making my way to finishing it on the hardest.

I saw Skald: Against the Black Priory was 40% off and I've had my eyes on it for a while, so I just went for it. Have played about 6 hours now and I'm loving it. The only thing I'm unsure of is replayability as it's feeling fairly linear and with only marginal decision making, but otherwise it's been really cool. You get the old school late 80s/early 90s RPG look but with a less clunky feel. It doesn't have the most beautiful sprite work, but I really like the art for the splash screens. The music is great and nostalgic and the display settings emulating period monitors via filters was a lovely touch.

The writing feels solid and the atmosphere of gloomy hopelessness and cosmic horror really works for me. Combat has felt fun enough - though fairly simple - and I don't think the game is long enough that it will become a problem.

Looking forward to seeing how it ends, but from what I've seen so far I'd recommend it to almost anyone. It's not that expensive either, even at full price.

I've been playing through Black Skylanda lately.

I originally put it down because the top-down perspective was a bit jarring, but have been having fun taking down sky pirates both on land and in the air since I've picked it back up.

So far the upgrade paths and the currency gain for those upgrades have been mostly on par with each other, so I haven't felt the need to grind mats for anything. I can rescue a stranded pilot or two, liberate an island, and carve out a new parking location for my big ship all in one sitting, which makes it feel as though just about anything I do is progressing something.

Looking forward to more!

Great game! I had a lot of fun with it. Was it early access at some point? I seem to remember it not being complete when I played it. Or maybe I was left wanting more? Guess I'll reinstall and find out. Thanks for the reminder!
- I think it did have an early access period at some point. I also seemed to have the backer DLC, which gives a little boost to resources and a weapon for the early game.

I recently finished main story in bully on ps2 (emu). About 55% completion after end mission, and 11 hrs. Did some additional missions to get me up to about 65% and then retired the game as im not all that crazy about hunting down blue rubber bands and whatnot. Did most of the classes, but lacked a few art and photography.

Moved to another ps2 title now: jak & daxter the precursor legacy. No experience with this series before, but enjoyable first 45 mins which is what i have been able to play so far.

Neverwinter nights still on the backburner for now, and tomorrow i will play some kind of multiplayer game with an old uni buddy of mine, but not decided which one yet

Pathologic (2005). Been wanting to play it for years but been a bit too intimidated because of the reputation it has, but finally gave it a try and am about halfway through the Bachelors' route.

It's actually not as bad as I had made it out to be. The core loop of resource management isn't too difficult and pretty engaging. You famously spend a large portion of the game walking between places but because of the stakes imposed by the resource management and the constant potential for sweet deals in the hobo economy, you're always engaged. The game isn't afraid to throw unfair feeling scenarios at you, but if you're not above reloading and retrying a couple of times they are very possible to deal with, at least so far. I have a decent stock pile at the moment, so I might actually fuck around and not reload next time I catch the plague.

The game does a lot of things with the medium that very few other games have even attempted and is absolutely worth a play. It also has a very unique and compelling setting, Morrowind is probably the closest example I can think of in terms of world building even if the setting in Pathologic is relatively speaking more grounded.

If you haven't heard of it before, Quinns article in rock paper shotgun is a good introduction and what first made me interested in the game when I first read it maybe a decade ago. Since it was written, Ice Pick Lodge (the studio behind the game), has released a remastered version of the first game with better translation, released a sequel and announced a second sequel, both of which are retelling of the story in the first game from the point of view of one of the three available protagonists in the first game.

Skyrim sunk it's claws in me again lol

there was a recent sale of the anniversary edition so I hot it and dived back in...

want to play as a strict necromancer but it's sooooo hard! I'm not using any destruction magic, trying to limit restoration. I'm trying to level up my alchemy asap....it's been interesting.