I wasn’t patient this time around, so it’s Slay the Spire 2, early access.

It runs really well on my two core third gen ryzen laptop, and I will gladly recommend it to anyone who likes deckbuilders.

Started playing Rauniot - a post-apocalyptic isometric point&click adventure game set in Lapland. Only few hours in and the vibes are great, although the voice acting and dialogue feels … I dunno, it’s not “bad”, but it feels a bit “off”, like it’s written by"semi-edgy artsyfartsy" type, and the dialogue is performed by aliens who only got the tldr version of how to act human.

Visually the game looks quite a bit like Fallout 1 and 2, just with higher colordepth and resolution. Sound (apart from dialogue) is pretty ambient. So all good in my books. And I gotta respect the absolutely slamming metal tune the main character is blasting in their car during the intro sequence. Hell. Yea. \,/

Puzzles have been mostly “find a tool to do x”, some items (eg. a rope in the first screen of the game) do blend into the background, so hovering over everything on the screen is a must. Interactables are highlighted in yellow outline, which on some cases can be really soft and it blends to the apocalyptic colorpalette of sepia/brown/gray surprisingly well, but at least all interactable things have a soundeffect when hovered with a mouse.

Gotta play more, I do want to see where it goes with the story and puzzles later on.

Outer Wilds

Do you want an open-world space puzzler where nothing is stopping you from beating the whole game in 20 minutes except the fact that you don’t have the knowledge needed to do it? No unlocks, progression is all based on learning new info. 20+ hours of exploring a miniature solar system to find an extremely satisfying end where you get everything to align.

Pick it up and don’t look anything up.

Not that old yet, but I’m currently finishing The Alters. It’s a beautiful, atmospheric survival game with a relatively simple gameplay loop but intriguing background story. I’d say play it once for the story.

Rise of the Ronin

I’ve been hooked on the open world slop juice. Honestly having a great time with it and I am kind of perplexed it didn’t get better reviews. The combat is really good, there are some charming characters in the cast and the open world is not any better or any worse than your garden variety Ubisoft style open world game. I also quite enjoy the historical aspect of the story and while it isn’t a documentary or anything it’s still anchored in real events and authentic characters from the period.

The combat is the star though and it does have the special Team Ninja sauce I would say. I have some minor quibbles with it (enemy tracking is too accurate, especially when you’ve rapidly changed direction through some movement ability) but overall it’s incredibly satisfying. The pace is super high and frenetic in some boss fights, at least if you’re trying to play to your maximum. Boss attacks come fast and unrelenting and require you to parry, and when it’s your time to punish you can squeeze out maximum performance by attacking at a similar pace, switching stances and weapons constantly and weaving martial arts. I’ve had some insanely hectic and satisfying duels in the Dojo.

Also the Dojo is a great feature, allowing you to fight 1-on-1 and even replay certain bosses, all in a setting where gear is neutralized, your items are limited to 5 healing item uses only and you don’t have access to your pistol or rifle. It’s a great balance where in the story missions you can breeze past bosses through buffs, tons of healing items, using your allies to help and using your guns, but then you still have the Dojo as a true test of skill.

Good old Quake.

I said it before but I man, the duel races in Ridge Racer 2 (PSP) are the most miserable experience I ever had playing a racing game - they are WAY over tuned. I really feel like there’s a middle ground between smoking the competition on lap 1 and spending most of the race watching your opponent at the edge of game’s draw distance due to them using a car which is faster, has better acceleration and starts the race with a boost. I like a good challenge but this ain’t it.

I finished the three duels required to unlock the EX tour series of events and that’s that, I’m not touching the remaining 4. Ever. I don’t need a 100% completion rate, not when some of the remaining content sucks the fun out of the whole experience. I’d rather have fun with the normal races instead and I’m extremely happy the EX series exist - I was actually worried I already cleared (almost) everything with the ending movie and credits unlocking halfway through PRO tour. I’m glad I was wrong.

Still love the game but boy was that rough at times.

I just finished my first Xcom2-campaign and had a lot of fun. After that I bought Slay the Spire 2, as it seems pretty similar to StS 1 - which is one of the best games I have ever played. This time which multiplayer!

I’ve been away from my PC for a couple months, and I finished Fallout season 2 while I was away and it got me in the mood for some balls-deep Fallout playing. I can’t decide whether I want to play 3, NV, 4, or actually play through the first three games because I never have.

I’ve been playing the original EverQuest (real patient lol) but caved and got Slay the Spire 2 the other day because it’s relatively cheap and seems like a good one. So far I’m really enjoying it and it’s fun to finally be playing a new game that everyone I know is also playing. Usually something comes out and they’re like “what are you playing?!” and my answer is EverQuest 😂

Wall Street Raider, there’s a great solo dev working on moving the codebase to a modern framework, but the original still slaps.

Dragon Quest Builders 2, inspired by FOMO over Pokopia.

Also continuing Horizon Zero Dawn for the third time. Just hard mode, but I kinda feel like I could do very hard.

final fantasy 9!

Picked up all the Splinter Cell games on a sale and started with the first using the EnhancedSC Mod, on Steam Deck. That’s not technically a “Patience” thing as I’m revisiting games from my childhood, but it sure is fun!

My partner and I have also been playing Harold Halibut. The story and visual style are an absolute delight, simpler adventure games are awesome when you’re tired or burnt out! I had my eye on it since it was first announced, it sat on my wishlist waiting for a < $20 sale, and then the GOG version got included “free” via Amazon Prime Gaming. Always nice to have things pan out that way, there have been too many occasions where I bought a game, didn’t get around to playing it, and then it turns up free or “free”.

I’m playing King’s Field: The Ancient City via RetroDeck (I would never have the patience for that game without abusing the save states feature).

Me and my friends are doing another run of Factorio space age. This time I chose Gleba, and I am actually having a lot of fun. Once you understand how to work with spoilage instead of around it, it gets pretty straightforward. It also helps if you have friends who have set up all the other planets so you can just request all the items that can help you haha.

I just started Cult of the Lamb. I’ve tried so many roguelikes and struggled to enjoy them, but this one hits right. It’s not too too hard, and I like the style a lot.

I’ve beaten the first two bishops already, and am working my way towards the third.

Started Deep Rock Galactic. Played DRG Survivor recently and had an itch.

So far only solo, to get used to playing first person on the Steam Deck with motion controls, seems fine-ish.

I guess the game really starts to shine with a few friends, so hopefully I can explore it more when my gaming buddies return from vacation next week.

Finished Shadows of the Empire yesterday. It’s truly a game of its time (jetpacks!) and the control schemes suffer a lot from being a N64 first game. The last stage, Skyhook Battle, is a mess tho. Why did the devs think that having a never ending swarm of enemy fighters that easily kill you was a good “warm up” before the “actual” level?