What are you playing these days?

[RaistlinMC]

Thanks for the recommendations, Magrus!

And let me know how it plays, Drew. I've heard great things, obviously, but haven't played it yet myself.

[RaistlinMC]

The original, 30 year old Fire Emblem in all of its hideous, pixelated glory, is currently available in English for the first time and is 5.99 on the Switch eShop. I cannot possibly recommend it highly enough. It is one of the ugliest, most user-unfriendly, wonderful little SRPGs ever made. Enjoy!

[RaistlinMC]

Oh man...if you haven't already played Battle Brothers, either on PC or Switch, you really need to rectify that and buy it today. The tutorial is nearly nonexistent and you'll definitely restart after an hour or two when you play around and figure it all out...but, boy oh boy, when you figure it out, it's amazing. It's the best murder-hobo tactical simulation I've ever played, hands down!

[Magrus]

Yeah, it's amazing if you want to go broke repairing your armor trying to find an Orc famed axe because you got ambushed by a necromancer with a horde of armored zombies charging you until your spear breaks from Spear Walling. The mod list I linked above when I suggested it highly suggested if on PC. Have you done the Lonewolf start yet? If not, you need "Runners" to use as bait to split the enemy early on. F for the Runner crews.

I have been pouring my limited funds into Stellaris and managed nearly 200 hours in the last few weeks of getting my rear handed to me by multi-year veteran players in MP. I'm not big on the space explo stuff, but Stellaris is what Civilization Beyond Earth should have been and shame on Firaxis, SHAME. Stellaris is fun if folks have never tried it, expensive though. I think I could buy an XBOX for what this will cost me to get all DLC to host regularly. >.<

[RaistlinMC]

It just released on Switch yesterday, Magrus, so I'm not far in it at all. But man, I'm hooked already! Great mechanics, both in battle and out.

[Magrus]

AH then the quality of life mods like walking faster, and balancing of ambitions and eyes lighting up when Killing Frenzy is active and stuff likely won't translate to play on the Switch. I dunno if you have the DLC on the switch, but I really dig the Lonewolf start. It's challenging, with 1 advanced brother in mid-game gear and a really limited budget, cap of 12 men instead of 20. You need to either protect your secondary brothers using the power of the Lonewolf leader, or use secondary brothers as bait to peel enemies away from your Lonewolf commander so he can cut down incoming threats slowly without being overwhelmed. It's a neat knifes edge balancing act compared to the other starts. Tons of fun.

This game made me want to redo my hack into a new fashion and well, WIP. Enjoy hacking through orc shields and dodging goblin arrow spam.

[RaistlinMC]

Such a good weekend of Battle Brothers! I'll have to try that Lonewolf thing out, as yeah, there is DLC I could buy to add to the game (which I likely will now that I know it's awesome). There was one free DLC I downloaded already - some sort of snake-y leviathan thingie - but I didn't spring for the others yet. Still, as the base game was under 30 bucks, I'll probably splurge for the rest of it sometime soon.

For now, I've got a group of 12 solid warriors, about 2000 gold and just earned my first friendship-thingie with a noble house, so my contracts are more diverse and dangerous now. So damned good. I love this game.

[Magrus]

Yeah, it's a rogue-like strategy game that pulls no punches. If you are into that it's tons of fun. You may need to open this at a desktop, but an old time guy I used to play Civ5 with competitively does strategy game variety streaming these days and threw together this gem: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...gid=1364054180 Just in case you want to look at the numbers of why you should buy X background over Y background, and why you should use X weapon instead of Y, and some end game builds. You may not be able to add mods, but having someone do some of the legwork for you on the number crunching may be attractive coming into it years down the road.

[RaistlinMC]

Thanks Magrus! Much appreciated, sir.

[RaistlinMC]

Nearly a month later, I've bought all the DLC for Battle Brothers and haven't stopped playing it since. Damn, that is one great game. Endlessly replayable too!

Right now I'm doing the "start with three gladiators" run and it's fantastic. Next up? Northern barbarian raider run.

So good. So, so very good.

[Blackfox42]

Meanwhile, I finally got around to playing the remake of Shadowgate that came out a few years ago.

If you enjoy the Point-and-click adventure game Genre, it is a really well done, modern adaptation of a classic - with lots of new puzzles, solutions, and way better graphics.

[RaistlinMC]

Oh man, I have such incredibly fond memories of the original Shadowgate! I remember laughing my head off just having my guy "heroically leap into the flames" off the first first bridge in the opening scene. Doing well was never my goal in that game back at the tender age of seven; I just wanted to see how many different ways I could make my guy die in that castle. haha

[Blackfox42]

Oh man, I have such incredibly fond memories of the original Shadowgate! I remember laughing my head off just having my guy "heroically leap into the flames" off the first first bridge in the opening scene. Doing well was never my goal in that game back at the tender age of seven; I just wanted to see how many different ways I could make my guy die in that castle. haha

Well, I can assure you, there are PLENTY of new, unique ways to die in the remake....and plenty of bridges and windows to throw yourself off and out of.

[RaistlinMC]

I might have to give it a whirl. I've never been a point and click guy - Myst, in all it's gorgeous glory, was entirely lost on me, as I much preferred the sweet, sweet ugliness of the original Civilization instead - but Shadowgate nonetheless has a special place in my gaming heart.

[Tiger]

I'm playing Outriders on ps5 right now.
Don't listen to all the vitriol about this game. I'm having fun, and the internet is a bad bad place.