The 2025 what are we playing thread

[schala]

I’ve been going through my Steam backlog and the most recent game I finished was “If Found.” I can’t remember what about it originally drew my attention, but it was disappointing in that it wasn’t what I expected in a game. The “gameplay” consists of just erasing the screen to uncover the next part of the story. That’s it. No puzzles, no choices (except maybe at certain points where you have to figure out where to move the screen to find the next part of the narrative), and you even have an option to simply “full erase” the screen so you’re not killing your wrists just dragging the mouse back and forth. The story was a bit confusing for me, as well.

There is a bit at the end where you make certain choices and that affects what you learn about what happens in the lives of the other characters (and there are achievements connected to unlocking all that stuff), but the “gameplay” involved in doing so was even more painful than the whole erasing thing.

[Frenzie]

I finished Shadow of Mordor (give or take some collectibles and challenges). I’m not necessarily sure if I’d recommend it. The gameplay is a mix of sneaking around and playing it as a brawler, where how you do depends on a combination of blocking or evading attacks and not missing, after which you can perform special feats. It certainly has its moments.

One of the better ones happened close to the beginning of the game. I was just riding a graug for the first time and I accidentally ran into my first ever general. This general just so happened to be afraid of graugs, and thus I was able to finish him off.

That quickly becomes your main objective in the game: figure out what a general’s weaknesses are, and exploit them to finish them off.

There’s also some kind of “nemesis” system, where if some orc kills you they level up and become your nemesis. This can become quite an obstacle, because they gain powerful bodyguards, they become immune to ranged attacks, etc. And I think they might even hunt you. All of these things are quite challenging at first, which is probably when the game is at its best.

So in short it’s well made and it was fun, but I had a significantly better time with other games that came out around the same time like Tomb Raider (2013), Dishonored, DmC: Devil May Cry, and Remember Me. I’d say it’s good but skippable. (But I will check out the sequel sometime. I picked it up as part of the same Humble Bundle…)

[BigRedButton]

Have you tried a title from the Jedi series - Fallen Order or Survivor? I played both of them. Maybe not the best games ever, but enjoyable, in my opinion - at least if you like Star Wars.

[Ignacio]

No, I’ve not tried them, but I was curious about them. Maybe this is the final push I needed to play one of those.

[kaiman]

Playing Crusader Kings III once more, specifically the new All under Heaven DLC. Despite being more of a RTwP type of game, it has that “just one more turn” effect that just makes the hours fly by.

I’m now on the third generation, after my initial character started a house feud, which led to his successor being murdered while in the midst of scheming for the throne of a united Korean empire.

That setback put me in the shoes of Kim Seon-ju, at age 15, who despite a careful education picked up an unhealthy paranoia that makes him quite susceptible to stress, and in CK3 stress kills. In my first attempt, he only lived to 16 before his heart gave out. Luckily, the game also gave out at that point and crashed without overriding the Ironman save file. Having received a second chance, I opted for partying instead of Confucian studies, which was more successful, but puts me a long way from staging another coup so far.

Pictured, Seon-ju, age 30, with family, at their estate:

Playing as him is actually quite fun, because it’s a constant dance on razor’s edge, given his mental state. But it’s really such flawed characters that keep the game interesting and fresh, especially at the start. After securing an empire or two for yourself, it does tend to get a bit boring.

But not yet, so back to my machinations …

[Sushi]

@BigRedButton

Have you tried a title from the Jedi series - Fallen Order or Survivor?

I once started Fallen Order (after completing The Great Circle and having a few days left on my game pass). Didn’t get very far, but it was alright (unless if you have vertigo)

@BigRedButton

enjoyable, in my opinion - at least if you like Star Wars.

I do! But I still have some others in my backlog:
Jedi Academy, Knights of the Old Republic 2, X-wing Alliance, Empire at War (+ the expansion), the Force Unleashed (1 and 2), Republic Commando, episode 1 Racer, … and probably a bunch others I got for free so they’re at the end of the queue: squadrons, battlefront, rebellion…

And I never completed these: Tie Fighter, SW Screen Saver
Come to think of it, I only ever completed Dark Forces, Dark forces II: Jedi Knight, Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast and Knights of the Old Republic

[BigRedButton]

To be honest, the Jedi games are the first SW games I ever completed.

Back in the 90s, I played Rebel Assault and X-Wing quite often. Later on, I bought X-Wing Alliance and I also played Jedi Knight. Episode I Racer was fun, too, but I enjoyed other games more. And point & click adventure games were the only genre that could really make me want to finish a game. I hardly looked back at my SW games over all those years.

Only a few years ago, when I regained my interest in more contemporary games, I became open-minded for action-adventures - I think especially the storytelling and the visual charm of such games had evolved significantly since my youth. Then a friend of mine recommended the Jedi games, so I tried Fallen Order first and ended up with finishing the successor as well.

Now I am looking forward to the upcoming part 3. The Great Circle is definitely in my queue as well - it seems to be a great experience, but I will need a better video card first!

[Sushi]

@BigRedButton

but I will need a better video card first!

I cannot even run a LEGO game (Brütal Legend seems to be the limit), but

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

Well, if you’re OK with some small glitches and waiting a few minutes in the queue at certain hours, you can try it for one month for €2.99 (the price of Amazon Prime in Belgium, which includes streaming the game on Lua) Alternatively, the experience on Xbox Live was smoother without queuing times, but the price comes in at around the 5 times more (still 1/3rd of the retail price of the game).

[BigRedButton]

Thank you for the recommendation! I hardly need a higher performance than I have, so cloud gaming is generally a good idea, nonetheless I am patient enough to wait until I have upgraded my hardware anyway, even though it is not scheduled yet, as all the other games in my queue run well on my current hardware.

In Germany, Prime seems to cost three times the price, nonetheless it’s still the cheapest option for cloud gaming, I guess. However, I always have avoided Prime for different reasons. Amazon is not my favorite company, you know. But sometimes they offer a 30-days-long testing period for free, so I will keep my eyes open.

[kaiman]

Finally completed Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 and most of its DLCs.

On the bright side, it’s an experience very similar to the first installment, but on the downside, it doesn’t really improve on the original. So my impression is that in a lot of aspects, it’s actually a little worse than what I remember from playing part one.

The plot of KC:D 1 was a simple and rather personal story about loss and revenge, that ends with riding out on a diplomatic mission, with your new best friend Hans Capon. What follows in KC:D 2 is wild, to say the least, with plenty of political maneuvering, skirmishes, infiltration, heists and sieges, but you feel more like a pawn on a chessboard than in charge of your own destiny. Also, it appears the major pieces switch sides all the time.

The larger emphasis on plot and spectacle also is at odds with the open world design. There are a couple of decisive moments that not only limit where you are able to go and what you can do for a while, but also impact the world and certain side quests. So you’re never quite comfortable advancing the main plot, for fear of missing out or losing access to parts of the game.

Despite the more intricate plot, the characters you meet and with which you spend large stretches of the game feel quite distant and set in their ways, and you never really seem to form a true connection with them. Contrast that with Hans and Theresa from the first game, and some of the minor characters as well, who were written well enough to make them appear much more like real persons and not just like plot devices in a video game.

There are good things too, though. For me, the single most memorable bit is a temporary buff for which you need to pray at one of the many crosses or shrines dotted across the world. I guess in most games that would be little more than pressing a button and moving on, but in KC:D 2 your character gets on his knees and recites one of several prayers, in full, for what feels like a minute, and if you want the buff again, he will do it again. Every. Single. Time.

It’s bits like that, that make for a great, immersive experience. It’s also bits like that, that turn KC:D 2 into a 200h experience … but all in all a fun one . And one that is pretty to look at, too:

[Sushi]

I started and finished Tomb Raider (2013). (100% completion)
Weird to think the game is almost as old now as the original was when it was released. I think it is safe to say the graphics aged a lot better than the original. Even by 2001 when the original was 5 years old, its graphics were outdated.
It was exciting to play, but a bit too much gore and horror for my taste.

[Someone]

@kaiman

And one that is pretty to look at

Which hardware do you use to get those detailed graphics?

[kaiman]

@Someone

Which hardware do you use to get those detailed graphics?

Nothing too spectacular. My desktop is a Ryzen 5600 paired with an RX 6600 and 32GB RAM.

I just checked, and the graphics settings of the game are all set to high with a resolution of 1920x1080. That gives 60 to 80 FPS at the location of the last screenshot, depending on the direction I looked.

I mean the game does not look so different from KC:D 1, which came out 2018. Back then I had a GTX 950, which gave me 30 FPS, while still looking great:

[BigRedButton]

Today, I got to test Indiana Jones and the Great Circle via Amazon Luna at my parents (they occasionally have a Prime subscription). The game itself is amazing, but unfortunately the Luna server is prone to dropouts (UPDATE: On the subsequent days, the game ran well on Luna).

Nonetheless it has been fun to play this game! I will probably buy it.

[kaiman]

Wonder how that will run on my box when I get round to playing it. My GPU is the absolute minimum spec. Though looking at the picture/video shared by @Frenzie in the other thread, there seems plenty room to reduce the fidelity and it would still look awesome.

[Paul]

I’d better get this in before 2025 is over and a new thread begins…

I replayed Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, and I played through all the paths. Great game, maybe the best non-comedy adventure game for me.

Before replaying, my memories of the game were mostly of the first part (NYC, Iceland, Tikal, Azores) and Atlantis itself. I only had vague memories of the middle parts.
In this replay I think I found out why - I think the middle of the game, regardless of path, isn’t quite as good as the beginning/end (though still very good).
The first locations are more varied and interesting, and Atlantis has that creepy/spooky atmosphere, and I found the middle areas less memorable in comparison.

Here are my thoughts on each of the paths, this time round:

• Team - this was the most enjoyable one, with some of the most fun puzzles (like the hotel in Monte Carlo). Having Sophia there generally makes areas better, like the Crete ruins/labyrinth and the submarine. It also has the fewest mini-games, with just the one balloon-flying section. One downside is that you don’t go to Thera, which is a shame.

• Fists - I thought this would be my least favourite, but it was actually ok. It has the best Thera, where you go diving, which actually felt like it could have been part of Team, as you get to play as Sophia for a bit. You don’t get to go on the submarine and also Monte Carlo is limited to just one screen, but both those things seemed fine in the flow of the game.
  Crossing the desert in Algiers (which is a bit of a pain in all paths) is slightly more annoying in Fists than in Team. On the plus side you get to ride a camel, but you also have to keep fighting Nazis (pressing “0” a lot in my case). You also fly the balloon briefly, but at least it’s simpler than the Team version.
  The worst part of Fists is the Crete labyrinth, it goes on and on and you have to fight a load of Nazis, including one you can’t use “0” on and who you have to solve a puzzle to beat (even though it’s the “Fists” path, so it’s odd that one ends up being puzzle-based).

• Wits - this was my least favourite…
  The high point is probably the Crete labyrinth, it’s not as good as Team, but a lot better than Fists and it has some interesting machine things in it that aren’t in the others.
  Thera is also good/interesting, but then you have to play a balloon-ride mini-game AND you also have to do the submarine all in a row, which is a bit much.
  Monte Carlo is the worst version of the three - you play a car-driving mini-game and you wander around looking for the correct street names.
  Crossing the desert in Algiers is also the worst version - if you get stopped, they send you all the way back to the city unless you give them one of Omar’s items, but you only get two items.
  In the Crete ruins, the puzzle is already done for you, but nothing tells you that, so if it was your first path you’d be a bit confused and the puzzle would be kind of spoiled.

Before replaying, I would have assumed Wits was my favourite, but oddly it’s the one that’s most packed to the rafters with mini-games.

One thing in particular I think this game gets right is how the Crete labyrinth is basically a maze, but isn’t as frustrating as other adventure game mazes.
It’s got enough screens to feel maze-like, but also few enough that you can memorize where to go after a bit of wandering around, and there are puzzles within the maze.
I like that better than the MI1 and MI2 mazes where you either figure out how to go straight through them, or you don’t and have to brute-force your way through (or get some paper and draw the map).

This is also one of the few games where I feel like the voice acting actually improves the experience. Everyone does a good job and it fits the Indy tone. I see a lot of trailers for modern point-and-click games where they seem to go for Saturday-morning-cartoon style voices, while in Fate of Atlantis everything is a lot more measured and relaxing.

[kaiman]

@Paul

Before replaying, I would have assumed Wits was my favourite, but oddly it’s the one that’s most packed to the rafters with mini-games.

Been a while since I replayed (must have been the Amiga version, which even on the emulator, installed to a virtual HDD has atrociously long loading times), but I tend to prefer the Team path, for how funny part of it is. Also, I actually like the balloon ride.

I think I played Fists only once and while it wasn’t as bad as I imagined (fighting seemed easier than in Indy3, even without the instant win button), I still prefer Wits. Didn’t really think there were too many mini games, though I remember that last time round the car chase took ages to complete. Crossing the desert without getting caught seemed easy enough, though.

Never played the talkie version, though. Originally I had it for DOS on floppies. Discovering there even existed an Amiga version was quite the surprise (judging by the timestamps I found out about it in 2014, so that also dates my last playthrough).

The boxed copy I got from Ebay also is the DOS version on floppies. May have to get it on GOG one of these days for the voices, then.

[Sushi]

I last played Atlantis probably… almost 30 years ago (the CD talkie version) and I still remember the awful balloon and submarine action mini games (on the teams path I think, which is the only one I ever tried having read in a review it being the most enjoyable).
It is definitely on my replay list and reading your posts I think I will take the fists one first, then team, then wits (to not spoil one puzzle). Or I may play all three in parallel with multiple save slots.

[Paul]

@Sushi

I think I will take the fists one first, then team, then wits (to not spoil one puzzle). Or I may play all three in parallel with multiple save slots.

I did a complete playthrough with Team first, and then loaded up a saved-game from just before where the paths split and then played Fists from that point up until you’re in the Atlantis circle maze, stopped there, and then did the same with Wits. I seem to remember that Atlantis is the same whichever path you take, so I didn’t replay it each time.

@kaiman

I still prefer Wits. Didn’t really think there were too many mini games

Wits might have been at a disadvantage on this playthrough because it’s the one I did last, so I was a bit burnt out from the other two paths, and I think I was expecting no mini-games. Next time I do a playthrough I’ll probably start with Wits first, to see if that puts it in a different light.

[Someone]

@Paul

(even though it’s the “Fists” path, so it’s odd that one ends up being puzzle-based).

But it’s still an adventure game. IMHO it’s very clever that you have to solve a puzzle.

@Paul

I seem to remember that Atlantis is the same whichever path you take, so I didn’t replay it each time.

Yes, it is the same.

After reading the posts from you and the other Thimbleweeders I really would like to replay Indy 4 again. And I agree with you:

@Paul

maybe the best non-comedy adventure game