Games of all Kinds (Video, Board, Mobile, Card, etc.)

[Vanimal46]

What’s everyone playing these days?

 

I decided recently to forgo buying the next Gen game consoles and bought a gaming PC to kill 2 birds with one stone... The personal laptop is ready for the Office Space bat treatment. 

A group of friends and I have started doing a weekly board/card game night as well. Since we’re getting older and finding out yelling at clouds isn’t so bad. 

[Mike Sixel]

Wingspan and Jaws of the Lion.

Often play Odin's Ravens as our go to quick, two person, game.

Best board games (not in order, that I've played):

7 Wonders
Wingspan
Azul
Odin's Ravens (2 player only)
Jaipur (2 player only)
Carcassonne
Ticket to Ride
 

Check out this list:

http://meadowparty.com/blog/2019/11/18/top-100-boardgames-2019-edition/

[Mike Sixel]

If you like D&D, Solasta is a new video game that is very true to the 5e rules. I've only played the beta so far....

[TheLeviathan]

I got the PS5 so I'm reliving my favorite series of all time with Mass Effect Legendary.

We got the game "Strike" for our kids and really enjoy it as a family game.  Ditto "Can't Catch Harry" which is a version of Spoons.  I wish we had more time for adult gaming, but we don't get to that a lot.

[Vanimal46]

27 minutes ago, TheLeviathan said:

I got the PS5 so I'm reliving my favorite series of all time with Mass Effect Legendary.

We got the game "Strike" for our kids and really enjoy it as a family game.  Ditto "Can't Catch Harry" which is a version of Spoons.  I wish we had more time for adult gaming, but we don't get to that a lot.

I was torn on the consoles because Halo was the game I played heavily as a teenager. But my heart was steering towards the PS5 for the controller and backwards capability to play older games. Maybe one day I’ll get that too when it’s easier to acquire. 
 

PSA for anyone looking for a PS5 Or Xbox Series X... @ PS5Restocks is a great follow on Twitter to get notifications on stock availability for the true MSRP price. 

[Vanimal46]

I love sports games. Always have and always will. Unfortunately sports games in recent years have focused more on micro transactions to get more money from people than the actual gameplay. My desire these days is going back in time to games where gameplay mattered and not the pay to win model that EA Sports and 2K implemented. 
 

@Danchat I know you’re a Madden 08 gamer. Have you seen the modded version on Reddit?

[Vanimal46]

@ashburyAny tips for a newbie for OOTP? That will be one of my first downloads on Steam. Don’t they have an annual sale when it’s ridiculously cheap?

[TheLeviathan]

8 hours ago, Vanimal46 said:

I love sports games. Always have and always will. Unfortunately sports games in recent years have focused more on micro transactions to get more money from people than the actual gameplay. My desire these days is going back in time to games where gameplay mattered and not the pay to win model that EA Sports and 2K implemented. 
 

@Danchat I know you’re a Madden 08 gamer. Have you seen the modded version on Reddit?

I just play franchise mode mostly in Madden and The Show.  I play while I use the treadmill and that's usually all my gaming time so I dont get caught up in all that.

PS5 is a beautiful machine to use...I can't wait for that hardware to get put to full use.

Should've mentioned I still run a baseball mogul online sim league that has been going since 2010.

[ashbury]

On 6/9/2021 at 12:40 AM, Vanimal46 said:

@ashburyAny tips for a newbie for OOTP? That will be one of my first downloads on Steam. Don’t they have an annual sale when it’s ridiculously cheap?

It seems to still be full price ($39.99) right now but sometime soon, probably around the All-Star break, they start offering discounts, and during the off-season the previous season's edition is something like 75% off.  Once the new edition is out, I don't think they continue to let you buy the old one cheaply.

OOTP is so full-featured, it can be played multiple ways.  That makes it hard to offer you a guide.  As an armchair GM, I generally go for the GM-only mode, but if you want to spend the time you can be both GM and manager, or just manager, and fiddle with lineups day in and day out.  These modes let you automate parts of the jobs that don't appeal to you. - e.g. you can run the June draft and then tell your assistant GM to organize the minor league system, or vice versa, or neither or both.  You can also interact with the play-by-play simulator if you like 3d graphics type of games.  There's also a baseball-card form of the game they call Perfect Game where you try to assemble a winning team of cards - either for free (once you've bought the game) or by buying extra cards.

Oh, and as for rosters, they offer all the current MLB franchises (minor leagues too), or historical rosters, or completely randomized simulated players if you like to test your GM prowess without preconceived notions about players.  As I've said repeatedly in the past, I find it fun to compare their scouting ratings for the real players versus my own opinions or versus what I read here on TD and elsewhere - they seem to take some pride in assembling a hybrid scouting report from various sources, though they won't say where.  I sometimes think it's worth the 40 bucks just for this quick and dirty aspect of their offering.

This probably only scratches the surface for you, but it's an addictive game and you might find it money well spent, so read their website and if you want to get more specific with your questions, just ask me.  (They also have a lively discussion forum on their site, which I don't think requires game purchase, so you can poll the readership there for opinions.)

Back in my days as a young programmer, I had ideas of developing a baseball computer game.  This is the game I would have developed.  Only they did it better.

[Brock Beauchamp]

On 6/8/2021 at 11:26 PM, Vanimal46 said:

But my heart was steering towards the PS5 for the controller and backwards capability to play older games.

I'll end up with a PS5 someday but Sony's backwards compatibility is embarrassing. The PS5 will only play PS4 disc games. No PS1, 2, or 3.

Whereas Xbox Series X will play disc games all the way back to the original Xbox. It's not 100% compatible with all games but it's an impressive list none-the-less.

But frankly, I'm a long ways from seeing a compelling reason to spend $500 on either console right now. Maybe in 2022, more likely 2023 for me.

[TheLeviathan]

10 minutes ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

I'll end up with a PS5 someday but Sony's backwards compatibility is embarrassing. The PS5 will only play PS4 disc games. No PS1, 2, or 3.

Whereas Xbox Series X will play disc games all the way back to the original Xbox. It's not 100% compatible with all games but it's an impressive list none-the-less.

But frankly, I'm a long ways from seeing a compelling reason to spend $500 on either console right now. Maybe in 2022, more likely 2023 for me.

A lot of the best games of the older generations are getting resmastered versions anyway so I'm not sure it's going to hurt too much.  Gamepass is really the only selling point for X-box IMO.

Playstation continues to deliver the best gaming experiences, best new titles, and the most reliable hardware.  It was an easy choice for me.

[Brock Beauchamp]

1 hour ago, TheLeviathan said:

A lot of the best games of the older generations are getting resmastered versions anyway so I'm not sure it's going to hurt too much.  Gamepass is really the only selling point for X-box IMO.

Playstation continues to deliver the best gaming experiences, best new titles, and the most reliable hardware.  It was an easy choice for me.

Except I have to pay to re-buy all those games and I have to trust in Sony to maintain their store indefinitely, which is a stretch. They recently got in hot water with fans for announcing they were going to sunset the PS3 (? I think it was PS3) store. Sony doesn’t have a great track record of long term support, or at least not as good as Microsoft.

I’m not knocking the PlayStation, I’ve owned every one of them and love a bunch of games, but their legacy support is miles behind Microsoft. 

[TheLeviathan]

3 hours ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

Except I have to pay to re-buy all those games and I have to trust in Sony to maintain their store indefinitely, which is a stretch. They recently got in hot water with fans for announcing they were going to sunset the PS3 (? I think it was PS3) store. Sony doesn’t have a great track record of long term support, or at least not as good as Microsoft.

I’m not knocking the PlayStation, I’ve owned every one of them and love a bunch of games, but their legacy support is miles behind Microsoft. 

That's fair...I guess my question is how much time do you want to spend on games that old with a new system?  

I've never quite understood why developers should spend resources appeasing legacy support vs just saying "keep your old systems"?

Not knocking the appeal of nostalgia games, just always wondered how much people actually use that feature.

[Brock Beauchamp]

3 hours ago, TheLeviathan said:

That's fair...I guess my question is how much time do you want to spend on games that old with a new system?  

I've never quite understood why developers should spend resources appeasing legacy support vs just saying "keep your old systems"?

Not knocking the appeal of nostalgia games, just always wondered how much people actually use that feature.

The thing is about emulation is that once you write the software once, it's not hard to maintain going forward... Sony simply hasn't bothered to try until this generation (which, uncoincidentally, is the first time they've kept the same chip architecture two generations in a row, which makes BC stupid-easy and almost automatic). All past Sony BC involved them literally putting last generation's chipset somewhere in the newer gen machine, which is a pretty ugly solution (also expensive, which is why they stopped). From the beginning, Microsoft has always prioritized BC emulation (even when they changed architecture) and they deserve credit for doing so.

Anyway, my kids play Wii/U and Xbox 360 games all the time, particularly the motion/dance games, which means BC is pretty important to me (and I'd someday like to have fewer than *six* consoles plugged into my living room television). And frankly, it's a feature console makers should just offer to their loyal customers who may not want to be forced to maintain a working PS2 indefinitely if they ever want to play their PS2 games again.

I mean, there are literally open source, free emulators that do a pretty bang-up job up through really recent console generations running on $40 hardware. It's not a stretch to ask a multi-billion dollar conglomerate like Sony to add emulation to their $500 console.

[TheLeviathan]

 

1 hour ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

The thing is about emulation is that once you write the software once, it's not hard to maintain going forward... Sony simply hasn't bothered to try until this generation (which, uncoincidentally, is the first time they've kept the same chip architecture two generations in a row, which makes BC stupid-easy and almost automatic). All past Sony BC involved them literally putting last generation's chipset somewhere in the newer gen machine, which is a pretty ugly solution (also expensive, which is why they stopped). From the beginning, Microsoft has always prioritized BC emulation (even when they changed architecture) and they deserve credit for doing so.

Anyway, my kids play Wii/U and Xbox 360 games all the time, particularly the motion/dance games, which means BC is pretty important to me (and I'd someday like to have fewer than *six* consoles plugged into my living room television). And frankly, it's a feature console makers should just offer to their loyal customers who may not want to be forced to maintain a working PS2 indefinitely if they ever want to play their PS2 games again.

I mean, there are literally open source, free emulators that do a pretty bang-up job up through really recent console generations running on $40 hardware. It's not a stretch to ask a multi-billion dollar conglomerate like Sony to add emulation to their $500 console.

Yeah, I don't think you're being unreasonable or anything.  There was a time it mattered to me as well.  Hell, we have a 64 and a Wii that our kids still play despite the Switch.

I just wonder how many people actually use that capability and make their purchasing decisions off of it.  At the end of the day, my $500 bucks is to play the next game, not a pixelated one from ten years ago.  It seems like Sony bet on that when they were deciding what hardware/software/features to focus on. By a quick glance at sales and demand, it may be they have the right read on the overall gaming market, even if that feels like a thumb in the eye to you.  (And I say that as a person who does actively maintain four older systems, so sentimentally I can relate)

[gunnarthor]

Mike's list is a good one. We have friends over at least once a month to have big board game days (with food and booze) so I'd just add a few more - Catan, Galaxy Trucker, Castles of Burgundy.

[Mike Sixel]

7 hours ago, gunnarthor said:

Mike's list is a good one. We have friends over at least once a month to have big board game days (with food and booze) so I'd just add a few more - Catan, Galaxy Trucker, Castles of Burgundy.

I can never decide if I like Catan or not. I mean, we play, especially when our younger son is in town....but I never know how I feel about it.

[Brock Beauchamp]

Spent the night playing Everyone Is John, which is an absurd game that really encourages completely awful behavior and ideas. I was in tears I was laughing so hard.

https://rpggeek.com/image/4327274/everyone-john

[Mike Sixel]

I'd rather you shop locally....but if you are short on cash and want to try some top rated board games, Prime Day deals look very good. Very good.

[Dodecahedron]

I still just play Fallout 4.  ?

[Brock Beauchamp]

28 minutes ago, Dodecahedron said:

I still just play Fallout 4.  ?

I really disliked Fallout 4, it's one of the biggest gaming disappointments of the past decade to me. There's just so much... crap... in that game. The town-building aspect and the ensuing garbage pile of inventory first frustrated and later bored me so much I quit playing.

[Dodecahedron]

2 minutes ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

I really disliked Fallout 4, it's one of the biggest gaming disappointments of the past decade to me. There's just so much... crap... in that game. The town-building aspect and the ensuing garbage pile of inventory first frustrated and later bored me so much I quit playing.

It seems like only certain types of people get into FO4, a minority of game players for sure, so I hear ya.

I did not like New Vegas, but for many people NV was the best of the series.  I did not like NV because everything was too spread out and all of the faction options were bad choices.

[Brock Beauchamp]

10 minutes ago, Dodecahedron said:

It seems like only certain types of people get into FO4, a minority of game players for sure, so I hear ya.

I did not like New Vegas, but for many people NV was the best of the series.  I did not like NV because everything was too spread out and all of the faction options were bad choices.

Ah, see, I thought New Vegas was the best Fallout game since 2.

[TheLeviathan]

Since this is a baseball site.  If any of you folks have an itch to GM a team using Baseball Mogul, we have the Twins open in the league I have been running the last decade.

We sim three times a week, super stable and fun file. @Vanimal46this is your OOTP alternative!

[gunnarthor]

Back to board games, I played Nemesis, it's basically Aliens but they couldn't afford the IP for it so they called it Nemesis instead. It's great!

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/167355/nemesis

[Mike Sixel]

I just bought Gloomhaven on sale. And Onitama. The latter is a two person game that has been recommended to me multiple times. 

[Richie the Rally Goat]

I’m finally getting bored with Fortnite. It had a good run for me (3+ years). Looking for PS4 suggestions

 I don’t have the patience for Fallout or other such open world games. I typically play for 20 to 30 minutes so the battle royale type is fun and I can feel like I “accomplished something”

I’m with Brock, not willing to spend on next gen yet. Maybe ‘23 or ‘24

[Brock Beauchamp]

I'm waiting for Metroid Dread to arrive tomorrow. I cannot overstate how excited I am to play a 2D Metroid game on a modern system (the 3DS game from 2018 was very good but held back by ancient hardware). This is the first "real" Metroid side-scroller on a flagship console since Metroid 2 on the SNES, I believe.

The Prime games are fine, whatever, but Metroid works best as a side-scroller. It always has, always will.

Now I just need Konami to pull their head out of their ass and do the same with Castlevania.

[Brock Beauchamp]

Metroid Dread is very, very good. Side-scroller puzzle adventure games work so damned well on handhelds. I have spent literally a decade+ wondering why the hell Metroid and Castlevania aren’t gaming staples on handheld systems as Nintendo treats Metroid as a second class franchise and Konami just makes truly weird choices with Castlevania.