None of us can hope to stay on top of such huge amounts of games in any reasonable time frame, not with jobs and social lives and other hobbies and whatnot, but I do try to play more than what I'm told to. I try to play games I like, or games I've been wanting to play for some time because playing games you don't like or don't want to play is stupid.
And so, here's a quick look back at what I've played this past week.
Star Realms is a two-plus player deck builder from White Wizard Games, the digital version of which is available on PC and mobile and is one way to keep my sanity at work. Spend money to buy better ships, hide behind bases to stop your opponent from damaging you too much, then strike out as hard as you can in order to be the last man standing.
I was once asked what my favourite game was, in the context of board and card games, and I immediately turned the question into 'what do I really want to be playing right now?', which should help narrow down the answer to the original question. Star Realms was my reply. Quick, easy to teach, tons of depth, and at that point, I wanted to go home, shove all the many, many expansions into one giant pile and play.
Save for the odd promotional card and yet to be printed content, I am all over the physical card game like it's the only thing I live for. It's not, to be clear, but I thoroughly enjoy it, and the digital version just makes it all the more accessible, especially for finding opponents to test your game.
Or it would if I forked up the money to pay for it. I have the free version, which comes with just the base game and some A.I. opponents. At one point, unexpectedly, I happened to unlock the Hard A.I. opponent, which should be behind a paywall and was playing against that, sometimes day after day after day. Then the app updated, I lost hard mode and started a losing streak against the medium A.I., and that brings us to this week.
To go all in for the digital expansions would be around £25, which is not an expensive amount for a game you want to play again and again. But I look over my shoulder at the first version of it I bought - the physical version - and I just can't justify spending more money for the same content.
Weird, in some ways, but that's where I currently am.
I was, and always have been, late to The Witcher series. I'm aware of how good they've been, mostly through YouTubers gushing over them at any opportunity but haven't ever thought to get them myself - probably chalk it up to not having the time.
The first game is on the 1001 list, and I wanted to play through the series in order. Not to spoil a review that won't be out for another five years or whatever (though let's hope I get through this list sooner than that), but I didn't make it terribly far in The Witcher before jumping into The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, completing it and finally jumping into The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, where I'm currently nearly 80 hours in after having finished the main game, then Hearts of Stone, and now going through Blood and Wine.
It's amazing. What can I say that hasn't been said before? Yes, I've dropped the difficulty to make it more 'Press X to win', and have installed a couple of mods to make things easier (auto-applying oils and faster fast travel and so on), but I'm still engrossed in it. I've been clearing out a lot of weeds recently, which hasn't been as adventurous as you might hope, but it is a side quest in a region of vineyards, so there is that...
What I have managed to avoid, almost with 100% success, is Gwent. Gwent sucks. I'm sorry. I love card games. Outside of video games, card games are my thing, but Gwent isn't. I just can't wrap my head around what makes it so popular. I sort of understand the rules, so nailing them might sway my interest. Until that happens though, I've no interest in going anywhere near a Gwent deck, which makes learning those rules a lot harder, doesn't it?
I've also had characters with unique Gwent cards die, so no complete collection for me. Oh well.
I thought Hawken was a PC game, but apparently it's on the consoles these days, and it's free to play, which makes me happy. It's also got ruddy good looking mechs, which makes me doubly happy. It's also got awful menus that bug out and don't appear to be too responsive or useful, which doesn't make me happy.
At its heart, Hawken is team deathmatch with giant mechs. Very, very customisable giant mechs, and quite a few of them, should you sink the time or money into upgrading them. The bog standard mechs will still rip you to pieces though, as the more seasoned players will regularly show you mid-match...
There's quite a varied community of players. I've played with whiny players who blame their team when losing. I've played with a kid who must be half my age and twice my skill level (even including the number of previous FPS games' skillsets you can transfer into any other FPS). I've played with teams with a plan, and teams very much without one.
It's a great game, let down a little by its presentation. For free, it's amazing. Depends what you're into, I suppose. Will I play it again? Most likely. Mechs. Will I devote as many hours to it as I have The Witcher, for example? Probably not.
Back to card games now, with Ascension by Stone Blade Entertainment. It's another game where I've poured lots of money into the physical version, and much less so into the digital version, but the digital version is cheap and comes with a lot of meaty expansions. I think I got it on a sale, to account for its cheapness though, so don't quote me on that.
Similar to Star Realms (as they share some key designers), you buy better cards from the market and build your deck into something much more useful to you, with the goal being to fight monsters and/or collect victory points. You play against other players, but unlike Star Realms you don't deal damage to them or anything. You can screw up their hand and steal cards, depending on what decks you play with, but that's about it.
Again, it is available on PC and mobile, but the mobile app was more suited to tablets, and in general, it looked a bit... unpolished, shall we say? I don't know. It was great in what it did but wasn't without its flaws.
Lo and behold, there's a beta version for an overhaul of this game, and it is awesome. Easily the best time I've had with Ascension, even when getting destroyed by the A.I.
I've been wanting to play Superhot for a long while as well but never found the time (but finding the time is easy if you actually want something). Again, I have this as a card game, playable solo or co-op, and so the first experience of playing Superhot I had was of that card game, with mechanics unlike anything else I've physically played.
Fast forward to the actual Superhot game, and it too has mechanics that are unlike anything else I've played, and eventually, I got into the swing of things to progress through the game to unlock the Endless mode, which was all I wanted, really.
The game was often 90% frustration and 10% overwhelming elation, but I was hooked, much like the characters in the story mode. It could perhaps do with more subtlety, this story, but I'll take it. It's short enough to not care too much and long enough to take you somewhere. It's also written in the second language of the developers, so I'll gladly cut them some slack.
A while ago I uhmed and ahhed over getting an ultrawide monitor. Games like Superhot and The Witcher justify the purchase immensely.
When I'm not playing video games, or card games, or board games, I'm in a Pathfinder RPG campaign that appears to be winding down after nearly two years of me being involved in it. I was introduced to the group by word of mouth, joined the quest to uncover the secrets of the Emerald Spire as a level 4 Paladin, eventually managed to kill off the cardboard character at level 10 or so, before becoming a lawful evil Cleric-come-market stall manager with a Bluff skill of +24 that sadly isn't used as it should be.
Rules aren't kept to the letter in this game, which is fine. If we have a laugh, we have a laugh. My bluff result should have stopped the party from doing something for a round or two, but it was funnier to have an invisible dwarf 'worry about it later' as he smashed my through the door I was blocking.
The group will have to break apart for reasons outside of the game, and it's probably the point at which I'll step out too. It's been great to scratch the itch I had some 15 years ago but dedicating 3 hours a week to taking three movement actions because you're not very effective otherwise is a bit taxing, even if you have a laugh.
I've not lost the love of roleplaying, but I need to mix things up, I think.
Finally, unexpectedly, is Orion Trail, a sci-fi themed Oregon Trail, where you take your crew across the stars, trying but failing to keep them out of harm's way.
In true Star Trek fashion, if you don't have a name you are probably going to end up dead - an away crew is going to go away for good 9 times out of 10 - but anything can happen when the Probability Drive comes into play. Given that it is the main mechanic of the game, you'll be seeing anything happen an awful lot.
I tend to skim read the actual events that occur, focusing on matching options with skill levels or going for an outcome that gives me more of what I need with certainty, rather than randomness. At the end of a successful mission, there's a breakdown of how many good and bad results you got. It can feel harsh, the random number generator, but on the whole probably isn't. Some types of missions just wipe out my (expendable) crew, and others are a walk in the park.
It's a simple game, it looks great. Colourful, blocky, a mix of new and old. I installed it a long time ago, and it was sitting in my Steam library. I was either going to play it to see what it even was, or free up some space for something else that would be played. After this week, it has a stay of execution, so to speak. The Probability Drive says I'll play it a bit more before finally abandoning it.
And that's that. That's been my week. There are more tabletop games to play this afternoon, but I don't know what they'll be yet. If there's a 1001 list of them... ooh, I dread to think.