It’s a weird feeling isn’t it !
I think I’ve been a little more careful than I have been in the past with the buying of new games but I happen to have and be interested in playing far more games than I have time to actually play …
(if that’s your pic, please do let me know ! It’s awesome, I’d love to give you credit but the site Google sent me to isn’t giving any accreditation)
What are they ? And before I start, here’s the obligatory (it really is obligatory, you get in trouble for not disclosing freebies) disclosure that all these are games I bought with my own cash.
First up and getting the attention is the new Battletech game. I’ve mentioned this one a few times already, it’s a strategy game set 1000 years from now where you are the commander of a mercenary group of Mechwarriors. I’ve been really enjoying this one. The turn based gameplay gives me a chance to look, pause, ponder, juggle the playlist on the iTunes (this is Important!) and tell the people what to do.
It might help a little that there are big long pauses while the computer goes off and does its thing loading in the next mission or loading in the spaceship again. This was definitely a good preorder. It looks like they’ve introduced a huge amount of the scope possible in the Battletech universe and tabletop games and I’ve been enjoying testing out different configurations of Mech and Warrior. I’m currently looking to have a mixed team of Melee mech, Short range gun mech, Sniper mech and medium range slugger. Switching out for a second sniper might be handy and I’m probably running too much armour on the sniper.
This is what makes a strategy game great ! If there are a bunch of different strategies and they are all viable while keeping the challenge in the game. Challenge is fun.
Talking about strategy – Motorsport Manager is on the back burner but this one again is a game where it rewards the best strategy with better results in the races. Do you fuel long and use slower tyres in order to have fewer pit stops ? Your cars lap slower but lose less time in the pits. Or do you sprint between faster stops and pit more often. More time lost in the pits, less time spent for each lap. The optimum strategy is different according to conditions.
I kicked off a game of Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 2.
That’s actually from the first of the two games but the graphics are similar. Spartan, fitting the capabilities of the day and enabling a great story to be told. The two games are set a few thousand years before the Star Wars movie at a time when the Sith Empire is at war with the Galactic Republic. One of Bioware’s better games.
I’ve gone through the first area of Kotor 2 and quite enjoyed it. I should go in for more ! (If I wasn’t addicted to Battletech at the moment). It’s a good sign when you can go back to an older game and find it still very playable and not particularly aged. Although look at the 4:3 aspect ratio. That dates it. (Kotor 2 was released in 2004).
I opened up Skyrim again … A pretty game.
A not so old game, originally released in 2011. A massive game. A game you can lose yourself in with the side quests and completely ignore the main story if you want to.
I have 103 hours in Skyrim across three save games and 12 hours in the latest. The drawback of the game is that while the game world is massive, it doesn’t really change much outside of the monsters levelling up as you cut a swathe across the country. There is still huge amounts to do though. I should dive back in ! After Kotor 2. After Battletech.
Stellaris is on the back burner at the moment. The changes made in the 2.0 patch were a bit negative in my view and I’m actually tempted to roll the game back to 1.9.
The number 1 rule applies : If you are not enjoying something that is supposed to be fun, do something different that you will enjoy.
Surviving Mars is one that I definitely have to give more time to. I think this one came out at a time when I was feeling particularly burned out so it didn’t get the time it deserved for me to learn the game.
Duskers is another of those, where you play the last survivor of a doomed universe charged with figuring out just what in the universe happened to everyone else. This is a superbly atmospheric game where you are limited to working with unreliable, fragile drones.
And there are more games too.
Not enough time ! No gaming tonight as well (ok, Idle Champions is on but that doesn’t count). I’m watching the finale of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, there’s a Heychrissa stream going on the laptop, I’ll have gaming videos on in the background and I’ll be charging through the Douglas Hill Last Legionary books.
Have a great evening !
PS I totally won’t be looking up laptops. I am very tempted. I think the temptation is heavily due to it involving the learning of Linux again. Something new. Something not Microsoft or Apple.