Patient Gamers

Blasphemous! Slept too long on this one, its really good, love the lore, and it's not too hard

Hitman Absolution

I finished Deus Ex: Mankind Divided this week, and I'm now trying to decide whether I want to push through the DLCs or not. I'm kind of done with the game but if I don't do them now I probably never will.

Overall I found MD to be good, but uneven. The main story overall suffers immensely from being the second game in a planned trilogy, but the side content is very very good. Gameplay was a step up from Human Revolution in most regards and there were some pretty good level designs strewn around as well. The final mission felt absolutely awesome to me and was one of my favourite Deus Ex missions, and Golem City was another highlight. The running theme of apartheid was also extremely well executed and the climax to that arc with martial law at the end felt very impactful.

Overall I think Human Revolution is probably better as it's a more self contained and complete experience, but the highs of Mankind Divided are definitely higher than those of HR, in my opinion.

Playing the last of us part 1 for the first time, about 10 hours in

CTA Gates of Hell Ostfront

I've been going through the campaign mission on hard and hardcore which requires a lot of micromanagement and they take ages to complete!

Completely ignoring the plot in Fallout 4 as I help yet another settlement

old world, which I got for €10 in the GOG sale. I wanted something like the OG civ experience, where you slowly build up your civilisation, creating a network of cities with good transport links, strong agriculture supporting healthy growth, then, when the bloodlust gets too strong to ignore, building small military forces to go out and crush your neighbours.

I'm enjoying myself so far. The game does seem like a more straightforward and casual Civ - the learning curve is so gentle and you don't feel like you're overloaded with admin details that you can't keep track of. Last time I played Civ, it was Civ 6 and it was fun until a rival civilisation plonked a city down right in the middle of one of my own conglomerations. Perfect excuse for kicking some ass, so I assembled a little force and invaded the city to kick it out. Unfortunately you can't just declare war and get away with it, and there were a lot of side-effects to contend with, such as becoming a pariah on the world stage affecting trade. War was just not economically viable, and while that might be realistic for some time periods, it just wasn't the game I wanted to play.

So I am happy with old world. It's pretty much what I wanted so far - but will the simpler mechanics make the game less replayable? It may well do, but I'm enjoying it for now. Above all, what I like about these sorts of games - zero time pressure. I can take as long as I like on each turn, there's absolutely no rush to decide what to do, I'm free to bimble about and make sure I've not forgotten anything.

I'm grinding hard on Fantasy Life i. I think I'm going to get 100% achievements, which is a rarity for me.

Back on my OG DooM bullshit. I gave Almalgoom a go and it inspired me to get back into mapping again after about 30 years.

Satisfactory with some friends. We just unlocked trains.

Giving Outer Wilds another go from a new save. I played 5 years ago but got stuck and gave up.

I am playing Alters. having fun so far.

I finally got Final Fantasy Tactics working on my Steam deck, so I will be going between that and finishing Pokemon Brilliant Diamond.

Slay the spire (again), trying to climb to A20 with Watcher now. Was never a huge fan of her deck, since most of my winning runs can be distilled into Rushdown and Mental Fortress. Maybe someone can tell me about other possible builds for Watcher