Weekly Recommendations Thread: What are you playing this week?

I bought the Halo collection and despite being annoyed at having to log in to an account to do anything, I am having to much fun replaying Halo 1

I’m doing a co-op playthrough of Halo: MCC with a friend. We’re currently on Halo 3. It’s very nostalgic

Baldur’s Gate. No, not the new one. Not yet anyway.

Path of Exile 2 got me hooked bad. The combat is actually fun and you have to use a few different abilities at the right time to be successful, at least as a monk. It feels very, very satisfying to fight both mobs and bosses in that game.

And the yellow rare items are actually rare, so using blue items is very necessary. Not like in the first game where you had yellow items drop constantly so blue was just useless and not even picked up.

Skyrim. The Phoenix Flavor specifically.

I haven’t tried that mod pack before but I’ve heard good things. I tend to stick with mostly vanilla mods too so maybe I should give it a shot.

Just finished:

Grim Fandango - remastered edition still holds up with minimal moon logic
Filament - puzzles felt a bit "grindy"/guess and check so I used a guide, but it was generally a great game
Battle for Polytopia - I played years ago on mobile, but I got a Steam key, so I played and it's still quite fun; I didn't play all starting tribes, just a half dozen or so

In progress:

Hogwarts Legacy
City of Beats
some random, short-ish games (trying to clean out some unplayed games before I go back to work)

I just finished replaying Life is Strange (the original). Now I'm starting Stray for a first play-through.

I loved Stray. Genuinely one of my favourite first time playthroughs. I played it next to my girlfriend. End of last year I bought a PS5 with my work bonus for a union contract renewal, and that was one of the first games we played. Now we’re going to be getting a pair of cats in a week or so. I hope you enjoy as much as I did
- You're going to have so many scratched rugs and doors...and dropped cans of paint around your house soon! Well, my cats haven't dropped any cans of paint yet, but based on my experience so far in Stray, it seem inevitable. Enjoy the new additions to your household!

Just started summer year 2 in my first-ever Stardew Valley playthrough

Also Terraria with my spouse when we’re too tired to spend brain power on BG3

Just picked up Ghostrunner for $9 on GOG. Really fun and it's a game you can play for like half an hour at a time, which is not very common these days.

I love that game. I haven’t finished it yet, I should probably get back into it soon. I think the sequel is out too, I’m assuming it’s also good but I haven’t played it so I’m not sure
- Yeah, I had it in my wishlist for years but literally nobody talks about it so I never bought it. I only did it because I was about to buy BG3 and told myself "Hey, for the price of BG3, I could buy these other 5 games". Turns out it's very fucking good.
Good pick, its a pretty fun game if you enjoy the "repeat until perfection" gameplay! Though I might be a bit biased since my buddy made the music for it.

Mad Max. I've only played for like an hour but it's been pretty good so far. Reminds me a lot to the Arkham games. I think GOG has it on sale for another 20 minutes. (10 am pacific).

I should really play it then. I absolutely loved the Arkham games

After some short bouts of Forza Horizon 4 and Dirt 5 I'm back at Final Fantasy XIII, hoping I can finish it sometime soon.

Elden Ring

Pentiment (very cool)

Class of ‘09: The Re-Up (hilarious and crunchy)

I love Elden Ring, it’s one of the very few games to make me break the patient gamers rule (I bought the DLC when it was new)
- Would love to hear your thoughts on the DLC over on [email protected] if you're up for it!
- Hahaha nice. I bought the game when it was half-off but bought the expansion when it came out… I’m only now actually PLAYING the expansion. Some dumb tree bitch killed me a bunch last night and today is Class of 09 day.

Mostly Elder Scrolls Online and Barony

If you‘re eyeing NFS Unbound for that sweet 90+% discount, get Forza Horizon, The Crew 2/Motorfest or even NFS Heat instead. The effects - which most people take offense with - are probably the only thing about this game that isn’t generic and the only thing I have a positive opinion about. The car handling, the map, the story, the soundtrack, the performance, the cops - the fucking cops… Long rant short: Get a different acarde racer and don‘t waste your time with NFS Unbound. There’s a reason they’re already throwing it away for five bucks.

NFS Heat is the same shit but better, and The Crew or Forza Horizon are way better than that still.

I’m a huge Forza fan so I agree with this, but it is annoying that most Forza games aren’t available anymore on steam (I think due to licensing agreements not getting renewed for music, but I could be wrong). Horizon 2 and Motorsport 6 are my personal favourites and I only have them on Xbox, but I don’t have my Xbox One at home, I left it at my parents’ when I moved out, so I can’t play them. I guess I could go and grab it but I’d rather keep it there, my parents use it as a blu-ray player and I don’t really have the space for it currently.

Totally derailed what you were saying, my bad. Point is, Forza is great
- I think it‘s car licenses, I heard Ferrari for example is obscenely expensive to license, the licenses run out and it‘s not worth to renew them since the games don‘t make much money anymore.

Slay The Spire. I usually feel neutral about rogue-likes, but this has got me hooked. The combination with the deck building might be it.

Hello! As someone who fell into the rabbit hole years ago, I would like to inform/warn you that "roguelite deckbuilder" is a genre.

Sorry / Your Welcome.
- Not sorry, thanks a lot!

I continued Witcher 3 after a long time. Trying to stop thinking of it as a chore to complete, and instead live it like an adventure where I can go and do something funny for a while without worrying if I get any progress.

I wanted to play Witcher 3 but I wanted to play the first two games first, and kind of felt like it was a chore. I only got about 6-8 hours into the first one before giving up. I’ll give it another try one day

I finished Mouthwashing in one sitting. It was very interesting horror walking sim with PS1 style graphics. Story is good and requires throught to put everything together.

Enshrouded with a friend. It's been a lot of fun. The game mechanics are interesting and I like the variety of things to do.

I've been playing so much Hardspace Shipbreaker. I've been a lot more dedicated to salvaging old ships than I have in actual career positions. Being a vacuum welder is awesome!

Just finished Crysis. Started playing Slime Rancher.

What did you think of Crysis? I’ve been meaning to play it
- It was okay, it looks much better than a 17 year old game from 2007. It starts out slow and the 2nd half of the campaign is more action packed. Story is pretty mediocre. Plays well on Linux with Proton on my potato machine.

Starsector

Still playing war thunder. The grind is for the patient for sure

After 12 years, I finally have had a chance to play Sonic 4 Episode 2. Cleared the first world with ease last night and had a real fun time. I have episode 1 on wii but never got to play the second because it never released on wii. I could have at some point gotten it on xbox360, but I had bigger priorities of what games to get back then.

Dragon Age: Origins. Playing on the Deck, and it's taken a while to get used to the remapped PC controls. The game definitely feels 15 years old. Still, the story and characters are good.

I see some similarities to newer games like BG3, like the idea of the camp, and having a large number of companions to switch between. I actually didn't like this in BG3. I think the Lighthouse setup in Veilguard, while mechanically similar, felt, and fit into the story, much better.

There’s no way that game is 15 years old, that’s crazy. I never played it myself outside of a couple hours but I had friends who did, and I remember it coming out. I swear that was only a few years ago
Hats off to you for being brave enough to play Dragon Age on a handheld, sir.

Finally started horizon forbidden West, I like it so far

Pikmin 3, Vampire Survivors, Gang Beasts, Pico Park, and a little Minecraft.

Trying to finish Psychonauts after several years of playing it on and off