I continued my playthrough of Against the Storm since it received a bunch of new upgrades. I am really having trouble defeating even the easiest seals still, but I’ll get there eventually.
I have resurrected my 360 and a playing Fable II on it. I also installed Xenia (360 emulator) on my Steam deck so I can play Fable II on the go.
I just hooked up my 360 again too. I’ve been meaning to give it a good cleaning and possibly replace a couple parts if necessary (I have three 360’s) but haven’t had the time. I haven’t really played on it much yet either, just a quick test run with a friend of mine playing 1v1 gun game in Black Ops II. I’m not much for shooter games usually but it was the first split screen game I found and it was actually a lot of fun. I sucked at it though, he destroyed me. Oh well, good thing I’m not competitive at all.
I need to clean, or possibly replace, the optical drive in mine. It is a frankensystem to start. I got a friend’s old 360 with a dead optical drive since we only played castle crashers at the time, then I got a 360 with a RROD from Freecycle and put the optical drive from that into mine.
A bad optical drive is what happened to my first 360. It failed in 2014 so I just upgraded to an Xbox One instead at the time, which I had planned on doing anyway. That Xbox One bricked eventually and I replaced it with an Xbox One S which then also eventually died in around 2021 or 2022 I think, at which point I switched to PC gaming. Once I switched though I wanted to play my old 360 games still so I picked up a 360 from eBay and my wife (gf at the time) wanted one too so I got her one as well for her place. Now we live together and I have three 360’s, one with a bad optical drive and two that work fine (one of them sometimes crashes but it’s infrequent) so I want to Frankenstein my first 360 into working well again (it’s the R2D2 360 which is objectively cooler than the two black 360’s I’ve got and also matches better with my PS5 I bought with a work bonus a couple years ago that’s mostly just a 4K blu-ray player at this point).
Are you syncing the files between the Xbox <> Steam deck?
Nope, doing a good play through on the 360 and an evil on the deck.
I did the same a couple months ago. Mostly played PGR4 and was also thinking about the Fable games the other day.
I setup a private WOW server at home and am enjoying a druid playthrough.
Nice, I’m playing retail pre-patch for Midnight 😅
Would you be able to DM me a link to whatever guide or resources you used to get that up and running?
I’d be keen for a similar single-player experience through MOP or Legion.
Dm sent
I miss WoW, but a private server is the only way I would play again.
Yeah. I didn’t realize how easy it would be to set up and configure. The hardest part was find the client and then figuring out what file in the client to edit to point to my server.
Of course I’m an IT guy irl, so setting up servers and such is my day-to-day so that helped.
could you also send me a DM how you set that up? since you said you are in IT i feel comfortable enough to dare ask if there is any chance to run one on a linux system?
I’m running nixos Linux on my server and laptop, so its doable. On my tablet ATM, but I’ll follow up with a DM when back at my keyboard
I can’t stop playing Cataclysm Dark Days Ahead.
It’s such a nice game for roguelike enjoyer. If you like gathering, crafting, surviving sandbox games, give it a try, it’s free and open-source.
Doom 2016, never finished it a decade ago and i felt the need for a twitchy arena shooter. Not going crazy with the secrets just playing blind is a lot of fun.
Such a great game; doesn’t overstay its welcome and has just enough mechanics to keep things interesting.
I’ve replayed it every few years and it’s as good as I remembered it every time.
I feel similarly about Crysis and Far Cry 3 too - but am probably in the minority on those two.
Heat signature, a game with a simple loop where you start in a space station, choose a mission then you have to set out in your transport shuttle, intercept a large ship and sneak on, avoiding detection or risk setting off the alarms and running into combat. It’s easy in the sense that every action can be taken by freezing time, lining up your shot or choosing your next action, but you will die time and time again. Honestly one of my favorite games of all time, I really wish it would get a sequel, it’s so bite sized but has insane replayability, procedural generation and the mechanics are some of the tightest I’ve ever seen.
The lore is deep and interesting, answering questions such as, “what if your entire personality is based on never killing, and youre about to be killed, do you break that oath?” And “you know that teleporting literally kills you, is that death? Is it the body dying that equates to death or is it the pattern surviving across the iterations that is you?”
If you like action games, even if top down doesn’t seem like your bag, you owe it to yourself to try this game
I second a recommendation for Heat Signature. The lower level mission tend to give you time to sneak and avoid detection but higher level missions are pure chaos. I don’t remember the specifics of the mission but I remember having about a second to complete the mission and escape while I was 3 rooms away from the target I needed to assassinate. Luckily I had slipstream with me so I slowed down the game where one second turned into 10 seconds and I dashed through to the target but the target was some really beefy guy that I had no way of killing on my own. Luckily the room had a window so I kill a guard with a gun, take their gun and shoot the window vacuuming all of us into space, killing the target and letting me escape with all of that happening literally in the last 0.1 second. That was the high point of the game for me because at that moment all the systems in the game came together to create the perfect mission execution.
Fuck. I guess I’m playing Heat Signature now.
Heat Signature is great. The same developer recently released Tactical Breach Wizards, I’ve not played it yet and while it’s not a sequel I think it will tick a few of the same boxes.
Animal Crossing New Leaf
I uncovered the 2DS’s while tidying up last week and thought I’d play a couple games. It’s been relaxing just playing for 20 minutes a day getting the fossils, bells/gem and a little chatting and fishing.
Halo CE
Still making my way through the campaign but I’ve slowed right down now after finished Reach a couple weeks ago. The game is fine but I’m not really enjoying the Series S at the moment for some reason.
Death Stranding 2
Really enjoying it still. I just get lost in walking everywhere so progress is slow but that’s how I like to do it :) I think I’m at the 2nd boss fight so putting it off a while longer as I explore more of the land.
Started playing Runescape: Dragonwilds with a couple friends and it’s such a nice game. It’s really pretty, has a great soundtrack, and game feels like a blend of Vahiem and Enshrouded, but based in the Runescape world.
My favorite part of the game is that you learn spells that help you do everything from mining ores and chopping trees, to repairing all your equipment and armor. It’s the first survival game I’ve played that really integrates magic into all aspects of the survival mechanics, which completely eliminates that grindy feel a lot of survival games have.
The build system is one of the best I’ve seen, with large, medium (half size), and small (quarter size) pieces, full clipping, vertical shifting, and an advanced snapping system that feels a lot like Valhiem, but even better.
My only negative comment about the game is it’s very much a beta that still needs some optimization.
Assassins Creed Mirage
How is it? I dropped the series after playing and hating Valhalla, but Mirage looked pretty good. I loved all the AC games before Valhalla.
It’s good. Not as expansive with a huge map with endless checkboxes like Valhalla, but it is more like the old Assassin’s Creeds with a focus on stealth.
I’d probably like it then. Thanks for the info, I appreciate it.
Not sure if you already played it but I think Shadow of mordor is almost exactly Like AC but 817262626161 better. If not you will have something nice to enjoy!
Only briefly and I don’t own it. Can’t remember how I played it now, probably at a friend’s house or a demo or something. I’d consider picking it up for sure.
Went in with nothing but curiosity and all of a sudden it was 2 am
Started playing MIO, which is a post-calamity robot on a spaceship themed metroidvania. The most impressive thing about it is the artstyle. Really strikingly beautiful.
Only a few hours in so far, but so far so good.
Not the most patient of gaming, but I don’t blame you as it looks drop dead gorgeous! I was also enticed when I saw it release but as always with the genre I have to hesitate a bit since I both such at and don’t particularly enjoy platforming and will easily get frustrated and not enjoy it if there is too much difficult precision platforming.
Will be interested to hear your thoughts on it regardless, I did still wishlist it purely because of the art.
Omg… i totally did not notice what community i was on… my bad. This is like the exact opposite of the point of this thread.
I think an exception is okay every now and then, I personally just like this community the most so I also broke the rules last year and talked about playing Blue Prince and E33 on release last year. Sometimes you can’t actually wait to play a game, you know? I felt both of those merited it, especially Blue Prince as participating in the zeitgeist of that and being part of discovering the game at a point where the community hadn’t even discovered all the secrets yet was amazing.
But yes, in general this is for the more patient kind of gaming.
Galactic Glitch. It’s a fun space shooter roguelite. I played the demo a few years ago during a steam fest, and just picked it up for next to nothing in the last sale. Neon graphics and electronic beats. Definitely worth it.
I finished the Banner Saga. I really wish I enjoyed the combat in it, as I’m sadly probably not going to find it in me to finish the trilogy. Which is a huge shame, because the rest of the game I really loved. Art was beautiful, music gorgeous, world building interesting and the story and characters were well written. I really do recommend the game, especially if you can grab it on sale. I love a game that doesn’t shy away from tragedy, that allows characters to die and that lets your actions actually have consequences. The tone and style felt really distinctive and just… refreshing compared to a lot of recent RPGs I’ve played. It’s slow, melancholic and somber. I really liked it for that.
Next up I’m probably tackling The Last Express, a game I picked up on sale a while ago and have been really keen to experience ever since randomly stumbling upon a video essay about it some months back and stopping the video about 15 minutes in with the realization that this is a game I need to experience.
Distant Worlds 3 has just started in Elite Dangerous so I think I’ll be playing that for some time.
DW3 will take a large group of dedicated explorers across the galaxy which should be a memorable experience for everyone involved.
Serious Sam: The First Encounter
I once again spent most of the week jumping between games with no specific plan in mind. My main idea was to play Serious Sam: The First Encounter but this, after a long and complicated process, ended up in complete failure.
I actually tried to play three different versions of the game: classic, HD and through Serious Sam Fusion. Each of them came with their own problems which made them unplayable, specifically:
- Serious Sam: The First Encounter (classic) - camera would point straight up randomly, regardless of mouse movement. Also a lot of rendering issues.
- Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter - same camera issue as above.
- Serious Sam Fusion - game won’t even load levels properly and loads to a black screen instead (no crashing or freezing).
I tried various in-game settings, WINE versions and their parameters - nothing helped. After a few hours without a success I decided to give up and keep looking instead.
Reverse Collapse: Code Name Bakery
After all of the mess described above I finally landed on Reverse Collapse. I actually played it on launch, back in 2024, but my brain was in no shape for this amount of thinking so I set it aside “for a bit”. I’m glad to finally be back.
RC is a 2D XCOM-like tactical RPG, with less focus on randomisation (different approach to hit chance, hand made maps), varied (often tricky) missions and lots of gadgets to help you survive each encounter. It’s also heavily focused on the story with a set cast of characters which may be a good or a bad thing depending on the player.
Game has some nice quality of life features, like:
- Really good controller support (perfect for playing on Steam Deck).
- Glossary, accessible during cutscenes (game even shows notifications whenever a new keyword is used to let you know when to check it out).
- Pre-mission briefing screen with map and enemy layout, as well as a list of enemies you’ll have to face.
- Option to toggle enemy vision range (useful during stealth) and attack range.
I only came back to the game last night so I’ll need a few more sessions until I brush off the rust and have something more to write about. I can however say that if anyone’s interested in this kind of tactical titles, Reverse Collapse is definitely worth a look.
Returned to Red Dead Redemption 2 for the third time.
Added more mods, now sitting at 30-40 total. Lots of technical optimisation done as well, big thanks to PCGamingWiki as always.
Playtime was at 468 hours; now 540 two weeks later. Feels like a blink of an eye. What an incredible world to experience.
It’s really a gift that keeps on giving, and the Read Dead Wiki is a marvelous place to delve deeper into the experience and learn lots. Hoping to try out the private online lobby mod soon.
Oh and also watching Dan Houser’s 3 hour interview on YouTube. Thankful for the many worlds and stories he helped create.
What mods did you go for? I should make another attempt to finish RDR2 at some point and diving into some more mods might inspire me to actually do so…
Wow I had no clue rdr2 had such an active modding scene!
Towards the end of last year I started playing red dead redemption 1 a little, since it’s just about what my machine manages to handle :-) Got about 10 or so hours in and I liked it okay although some of the gameplay was just a little too arcade-y for me. Like the horses feeling kind of like driving a gta car still, and other characters always going at full speed through the landscape. But the atmosphere was really cool and seemed to be one of the main drawing points for me. Not sure if I’ll ultimately go back for more though.
Do you know if the first one also has similarly active mods or any suggested gameplay improvements?
