Hello everyone,
There’s been a couple of year recap things come out lately, the one from today is from the Steam games store showing what I’ve been up to this year. I figured, hey, let’s share this one.
Games have come a fair way since the early days. The days (hushed voice) of 8 bit microcomputers. I started my gaming on a BBC Micro. Yep, last century, I am old. Oh ! I even did a meme for that a little while ago.
Yep. That fits. Elite Dangerous doesn’t appear in the list because I play it through the Frontier launcher but it would have a position high up here as well. I had a peek at a port of Frontier Elite 2 from 1993 too, might go back to that. What’s Steam say about me ? Here we are :
There’s a bit more detail on the Steam page itself. The stats are heavily dominated by Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms, which is an idler game that you just set up and it runs itself. So that’ll be running on the machine for many hours at a stretch and it’ll be running in the background of other games too. (For some of the stats, the game has to be running). A good few of those sessions will be from troubleshooting mods for games like Skyrim, where the game is launched, has a crash, the mods are tweaked and we try again. The others in that panel are :
Little Big Workshop – it’s a cute factory game where your little gnomeployees will set about building toys with the workshop tools you provide for them. It’s a lovely little game and I’d thoroughly recommend it. It’s a game I keep going back to.
Motorsport Manager – should really have had its time by now with the release of the frankly not good enough F1 Manager games but I still keep going back to this one. It’s a low interaction game, so I can do a race with the tactics and stuff while I’m munching my dinner.
One Military Camp – this one came out this year and it’s a fun little camp building thing, where you manage the one military camp to survive an invasion. It’s your job to set up the army to push back the evil dictator guy.
Trans Road USA – hmm, an ok game, probably not one I’d recommend. It has nice mechanics for setting up the trucking company but the campaign mode gets very silly. Still, I got my value out of it and it kept me amused for a long time.
Like the space trucking game. That one’s from Elite Dangerous, which I have connected to Steam but I just play it through the separate Frontier launcher.
My games seem to have gone more recent than the average, with 70% of them being released in the last 1 to 7 years. The average of that is 52%. Forgetting Idle Champs, the most played style is Management Games, i.e. games where I can mostly sit back and watch and occasionally intervene. 146 of the 306 achievements were from Idle Champions.
Highlights of the year were :
Dredge – a charming little game where you’re a ship captain of a little fishing boat. I’ve mentioned this one before. If you like the spooky vibes from the trailer, it’s definitely worth a look. I enjoyed it.
Skyrim – for the endless variety of mods you can add to it. Plus I like the vibe of being able to set out in a direction and find something new. I still need to finish it.
Deus Ex Human Revolution and Mankind Divided – the pair of Adam Jensen games that leaves everyone who plays them pining for a sequel to finish off the trilogy. They’re set in the grim near future, where cyborg augmentations are being added to our bodies. They’re a good pair of shooter stealth story type games, maybe ageing now but good story games don’t really lose their appeal. I’ll mention another of these in a bit.
Battletech – oh there’s one. Harebrained Schemes (the devs) did a great job with this one and I keep going back to it.
Mars Horizon – was one I played to death and I’ll keep occasionally going back to it. It puts you in charge of a space agency. The sequel due in 2024 will hopefully be a great game.
Old classics – Stellaris and Knights of the Old Republic. I feel these games have aged badly. Kotor was an early game of its type, newer games have made a lot of improvements. Stellaris started great but it lost me along the way with too many patches and gameplay changes. Master of Magic had a good remake but I think it’s stuck too much in the past. I miss the old wizard avatars too.
Fun but I’ve finished with them – Tavern Master, nice little pub builder but I’ve seen all it has. Euro Truck Sim 2 and American Truck Sim, I did enjoy taking the loads to the varied places but … it was hurting my hands to play it. Airport CEO is one where I’ve seen all it has again.
Promising but could be much better – Farm Manager 2021, I got annoyed by the restrictions of a seemingly endless campaign. Pegasus Expedition, this story based strategy game has an interesting take on space Explore, Expand, Exploit, Exterminate but the mechanics let it down. I might go back to it. Final Upgrade, a factory builder but … was finding it a bit tedious.
Mechanic games – Rover Mechanic Simulator is an occasional pleasure where you take Mars rovers apart and fix them. Offroad Mechanic Simulator is a successor to the car mechanic sim games.
What’s left ? Lots !
Games I bounced off but need to give more of a chance to : Solasta, a table top style role playing game. Just can’t get into these. Cyberpunk 2077, a future shooter role player. Mount and Blade II Bannerlord is another new one for me. Sky Haven is an airport manager builder game that I tried the other week but Brain said NOPE. Mechwarrior 5 Mercenaries is like Battletech with the big war robots but this one puts you in the pilot seat. Dorf Romantik and Rogue Tower are both fun little additions.
Stuff I completely and totally bounced off : Ticket to Ride, would be a fun board game with friends, very meh solo. War for the Overworld, Game Dev Tycoon, Two Point Campus (on a free trial).
And that’s them all ! Highlight of the year is definitely Dredge.
Quest of the year, game of the year. (Haven’t bought Baldur’s Gate 3 yet)
Hope you enjoyed this little peek into my gaming life for 2023. Back to cruising next post probably 😀