I just played..

[Limes]

Ingress is pretty much over for us. The re-written interface "Prime" is a pile of shit. It's kludgy and non-intuitive, it's trying to be pretty and lost a lot of functionality and ease of use on the way. Ptah would not approve. It's just unplayable now, it's hard to see anything, including hit rates, You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!

The remaining location based games aren't for me. They aren't aggressive enough. I want to be standing outside someone's home portal, taking it down and battling them in the street. Vive la resistance!

I downloaded a few things to try on the phone, including Star Trek and I've been playing the latest Sim City. hmm, pretty good mix of eye candy graphics and functionality. I see real money being put into some of these cities though. I am not getting sucked into a pay to play.

Still playing C&C2:Yuri's revenge. Twenty years on C&C now!
I fired up Tecmo World Cup 90 on MAME the other day too. Suck it Germany, Argentina. 7:0 I think I know about seven ways to score, which cost a lot of fish shop 10p pieces back in the day!

I got space trader installed on my phone. Not sure about text based trading though. I seem to be doing that on Sim City with graphics already.

[NedLudd]

Outer Worlds
Pros:
-Excellent dialogue. Really, I haven’t seen such entertaining dialogue and good characters in a new game in years. Most games great dialogue like an afterthought, something to just move the plot forward, but in this it was more like the point.
-it’s a really beautiful game. Standing in the glass dome of a spaceship and looking at the planets and stars outside is pretty incredible. The alien planets are a lot of fun too.
-A good mix of combat and non combat skills allow you to move through the game without it becoming too repetitive.

Cons:
-it’s first person. Why is it first person? A very strange choice considering how visual this game otherwise is.
-The combat system is a bit dull. This part is probably the most reminiscent of the Bethesda Fallout games.
-There’s not much of an impetus to actually do anything in the game until very late into it, besides doing quests for fun. In other words, the stakes seem low and your character’s point is mostly errand boy for hire.

Overall a good game though, I’d give it 7/10 for RPGs if it’s nature.

Edit: Absolutely NOT worth $60 though. I paid $1 through the Microsoft game rental service.

[Faust]

The moment people decided they can easily tolerate dull gameplay, it was all over for AAA adventure games.

[Thoth]

Code Vein: Anime vampires attempt to do a Souls game.
I've never been good with Souls games, I just don't have the patience for them, so I don't know why I picked this up. It's OK, I like the idea of what it does verses the usual Souls sequel but I think the title would have been far better served being a cooperative hybrid. Being an anime vampire gang with your friends taking down enemies would have been more fun.

Destiny 2 Shadowkeep: A comfortable old shoe
I would have stopped playing Destiny a long time ago if it wasn't what my online friends default to most of the time. Again, it's OK, just what you expect although Bungie changed up seasons by having a rewards track that gives various items and perks the more you play.

Borderlands 3: Another comfortable old shoe
I've got a bias for the Borderlands franchise, I've always enjoyed it and B3 is a definite upgrade in nearly every department over its predecessors except in one department, story. Borderlands has never been the top of the heap when it comes to story, but they've always been worth a tongue in cheek chuckle for their general irreverence. Unfortunately, the social zeitgeist of 2018-2019 bled into B3's story attempting to direct the irreverence rather than just lob crude or off color jokes and there is a subtle undercurrent of misandry throughout.

Why can't we just have fun?

Monster Hunter World Iceborn: Noobfinder
This has been my real bag the last two months. I've been trying to get my online friends back into it, largely to no avail, so I'm reduced to solo hunting or relying on randos. I find group hunting far more fun, and admittedly I don't have a twenty year old's reflexes any longer, so I backup is always appreciated in a game that has a higher difficulty curve than most. Overall, I have largely praise for Monster Hunter World, it has fairly deep gameplay that is rewarding both alone or in a group, but it does have a fairly bare bones story if that's what you're really into. MHW is definitely more about challenge and gameplay than it is about a plot.

As for why I subtitle this Noobfinder... I've played the title since release but gave it a lapse for a few months until Iceborn came out. The expansion serves to make all the original content more challenging but it acts as a stand alone game which means a lot of new players came in, racing as fast as they could up the ranks without paying attention to mechanics only to reach my current level where they get nigh continuously defeated in hunts, causing them to fail. There are tells at late game that let you know if another player actually deserves their hunter rank and wasn't just helped there by someone largely completing challenges for them. When I see a player fail to buff up or running a full DPS, zero defense setup, I cringe and ready myself for a headache.

[pensive_pilgrim]

I've been playing The Forest, a game where you play a cross-dressing homeless cannibalistic lumberjack in what appears to be Florida. I'm building a houseboat for rabbits.

[Sinny]

I'm playing City Skylines.

I had an epiphany earlier when I remembered that I was a big fan of Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon, Wildlands.
Must get that.

[TeresaJ]

I've been playing live action Myst with the kiddo again. It goes like this: you go to a playground, figure out how to power on the machines, unlock the codes, travel through a magic maze, contact Atrus, and then proceed along whatever quest he gives you while he continues working in his underground city.

It's pretty fun.

[Sistamatic]

Beat Saber 360 and Beat Saber 90. I thought it was going to be dumb, with cubes coming from random directions, but it's really well thought out and well executed, with the way you need to stand sort of rolling in one direction or the other. The coolest part is that the cubes can come from alternate vectors and cross over each other, which adds an incredible dynamic to the game. As with all things game, a learning curve exists. I can easily pass the expert levels in 360, but expert plus eludes me. I need to put in a little time with the additional vectors for it to be intuitive enough to play at such high speeds. All in all, it's really fun and I look forward to more 360 levels.

I also have been playing Boneworks with the new Valve index controllers (they arrived!) and I can't even say enough about how fun it is, though I'm a little disturbed at how much I enjoy stabbing things with knives in that game. There is no save function in story mode. You have to make it through a whole entire level before you turn it off of go anywhere or you have to start over on that level. I understand that when I'm done with story mode, sandbox and arena will unlock.

[Sistamatic]

Hellblade Senua's sacrifice VR edition:

I'm sold on third person VR now. This game puts the assertion that first person VR is most immersive to the test. I still enjoy first person, and I love the crap out of boneworks...hands in VR are amazing, but I've never been more immersed in a game than this. Just brilliantly done. You need an xbox 360 or steam controller to play, regardless of whether or not you play in VR, but in VR, with a headset, and with the voices in Senua's head as your only guides ... goosebumps. Creepy crawly goosebumps.

[Hephaestus]

Hellblade Senua's sacrifice VR edition:

I'm sold on third person VR now. This game puts the assertion that first person VR is most immersive to the test. I still enjoy first person, and I love the crap out of boneworks...hands in VR are amazing, but I've never been more immersed in a game than this. Just brilliantly done. You need an xbox 360 or steam controller to play, regardless of whether or not you play in VR, but in VR, with a headset, and with the voices in Senua's head as your only guides ... goosebumps. Creepy crawly goosebumps.

I like the camera mode that makes everything mini-fig size the most--but the alternate camera modes don't work with the alignment puzzles. It's amazing how much she looks like a living, breathing person in any camera mode.