Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of April 6th

My apartment got flooded recently so I don't have access to my computer for now, so I booted up RetroArch on my phone with a Razer Kishi and started playing Pokemon Unbound, a pretty neat rom-hack.
I'm only at the 3rd gym leader right now though, but I've been passing time in-game by making sure to name every single pokemon I catch.

I'm discovering the Mass Effect trilogy 2 times a week before remote work. That's a nice way to begin the day ☺️ Also spreading some Democracy with friends (Helldivers 2 obviously).

Dark Souls 2, again. I'm helping a new player and the really bad co-op mechanics might be enough to push me to try out some mods like seamless co-op and the lighting engine which looks gorgeous.
Dome Keeper. I didn't realize it was made in Godot which is neat and encouraging to see. I really like the gameplay loop and graphics and look forward to unlocking more things to shake it up.
New Super Lucky's Tale. The burrow mechanic was pretty fun. While the game wasn't very challenging it was still a good playthrough and visually strong. The best part was the bonus world at the end where you really get to let the abilities rip, especially in combat. I wish there were more enemies around in the rest of the game because the way you can chain together attacks and create a "flow" was fun and seriously under-utilized.
- I've been playing with the seamless co-op mod with a friend on Dark Souls III and it is the best way to play in my opinion. Same goes for Elden Ring. No way I would have played through 5 times with the built in co-op.

I have been playing a LOT of Tropico 6 and Siralim Ultimate lately. Really enjoying both, even if some of Tropico 6's missions are a bit poorly designed lol

I randomly decided to play a round of Tetris in Puyo Puyo Tetris 2 and ended up playing my best game ever of 715 lines with 54 minutes of play before losing. It was supposed to just be a quick 15 minute session but turned into something quite chaotic and fun!

I've been playing far cry 2 mostly :3
With a sprinkling of red eclipse matches
- Far Cry 2 has the best fire and physics in the series, in my opinion. Aside from the constant guard pestering, it's my favorite one.
  
  My favourite one too :3.. but ye the constant enemy checkpoints do me in

I finally finished Avowed! I really had fun playing it, and given that the map looks like it has more areas, I hope there's an expansion soon.
Also played through Atomfall as well, though it wasn't as good as I hoped it would be. I didn't have as much fun playing it as I did Avowed, but there were some nice, spooky sections that I enjoyed.
Currently achievement hunting Kona before it gets removed from GamePass. The one for not using any vehicles is such a pain, lol.

Trying a solo Honor Mode run in Baldur's Gate 3. Playing a Gloomstalker Assassin, which should avoid getting into combat a lot, and just snipe from max range, if you play it right. If I die, I'll probably still continue the run. I've done the beginning too many times earlier this year.

I started Remember Me, but the camera is complete ass. I played it at 240Hz, but it bounced around so much, I got motion sickness.
I'm going to give it another try with a controller and at 60Hz, but if it's still sickness-inducing, I'ma have to drop it.

Started playing War Thunder again this week. I was a fan of the Air Warrior and James Attack Squadron games all my life and it is very good!

Haven't played much but it's Deus Ex: Mankind Divided still. Only at the beginning so far, doing side quests and exploring Prague. Really enjoying what I'm seeing so far and already am feeling bad for how the series got cut off and cancelled.

Astrobot! Loving it so far, we started it just yesterday and trying to complete 100% levels, enjoying every minute of it! We now understand why’s last year GOTY…

I'm over here trying to play some PS2 games I didn't get around to when I was younger. A few hours into Dark Cloud and wow that is still a fun game.

I've been playing Grounded recently. I've been finding it pretty fun, even when played solo. Although some aspects were a bit confusing or felt slightly padded (likely due to playing solo). I have also been wanting to get back into monster hunter wilds so I'll likely try that again soon. It's been a lot of fun as well but oooh those menus on menus can get overwhelming.
I've been very curious about the switch 2 and the price increases that will likely hit the market. I'm slightly afraid they might try to jack up prices on existing games, so I'm debating if I should snag some now or hold off. I've wanted to play some of the xenoblades and the newest Mario party!

My wife and I have been playing a lot of Enshrouded, lately. With all the new updates, it's just a lot of fun, though challenging at times. :)

Fallout London currently has my attention. It's remarkable how it's possible to build a game that doesn't feel like a tiny playpark with the tech. London is BIG!

Not much this week, been looking a lot at the Switch 2 trailers.
I've played Heavenly Bodies with a friend. We liked it, although it wasn't really designed for two people.
I'm back to Fire Emblem Engage, played chapter 16 which took me ages.

I've finally figured out how to install frogcomposband in a docker container. It's a fork of a game called Angband that's played in a terminal window. Angband itself has a long history. Somewhere around 30 years if I remember correctly.
It's setting is closer to lord of the rings but it has the insane complexity of a pen and paper, dungeons and dragons type game. A huge amount of races and classes to play and even the option to play an impressive amount of different monsters or enemies.
I think what I'm enjoying about it is that the graphics are just coloured numbers, letters and symbols. The playable character is just the @ symbol. It leaves room for the imagination to fill in the blanks which feels very calming.
When I was going through my Baldur's Gate phase, I noticed my brain was in complete overdrive after playing a session. I think processing the crazy details in that game was too much for my brain.
Now when I shut off the game I'm not overwhelmed and I still get my role playing game fix. It's nice.

I'm bouncing around several games right now. New season of CoD, Space Marine 2, Balatro, Monster Train, and STALKER 2.
I also started Valkyria Chronicles 4 recently and have been enjoying that as well.

Battlefield 2042. There's nothing else that scratches the large scale vs fps that's got players in Australia. I tried cod6, hated it, waste of money; I'm not really into battle royale format games. 2042 is often cheap on sale, it's still getting new players and for Oceania there's actually people playing it. Battlebit was fun but it's dropped off in popularity.
- Hell yeah I'm one of the few 2042 defenders. It's a good game now!
  
  Everything seems to have a rocky launch these days, but the event/battlepass is effectively free for the coins you earn through play, they're still releasing skins, a new map or even a re-release of older maps would be nice, as would next map voting. And finally they can simply delete hourglass, worst map in the game.