Had been spending much of the month pootling around in the world of Kingdoms of Amalur, a game with a satisfying gameplay loop but full of story that I could not give a single hoot about. I have no idea what my mission is, who the NPCs are, or what they want from me. I just do the thing, and move on to the next one.
That would have sufficed for GOTM but then I installed Yoku’s Island Express and was besotted. A metroidvania platformer is normally the last thing I’d go for but this one features pinball. And is extraordinarily charming. I finished the main quest in 6 hours with about 50% completion of the game in general. That was probably enough as most of the rest is uncovering the map and completing minor side quests I’d assume.
Also finished a run of You Must Build A Boat at the beginning of the month. Seems an age ago now.
Last month belonged to Anno 1800. My first playthrough was in the campaign, where I made through the artisan tier before tiring of the extra objectives. In my second game I have engineers, plus fully functioning islands and trade routes on all four maps. Although I haven’t played any of the industrialization parts yet, I decided to take a break while I was at a good stopping point.
The ignoble award goes to Fallout 4. I spent a weekend working on a heavy mod order and hit an unavoidable ctd when loading the cell outside Red Rocket. I’ve seen that bug before and have never been able to isolate it. So that’s it for modded Fallout.
Stellaris is poised to be July’s GotM. I’m in a MP game with my brother and a friend, and playing together breathes a lot of life into the game.
Minecraft Dungeons: Never would have played this without XGP, but it was a fun ride with Diablo Junior. What appears to be a simplistic gear & trinket system can give you surprising synergies if you pick the enchants that fit well with your play style, and the recycling system makes experimenting painless. All in all a pretty good game.
Die For Valhalla: Castle Crashers on the cheap? Gave it a try because it was leaving XGP and found enough to pass a few days with. Same hit-or-miss aiming as all 2D brawlers, decently imaginative enemy designs, tedious boss fights if you are playing solo. Entirely missable yet reasonably playable. Seven of ten?
Metro Exodus: Played the first few levels up to the train, then petered out. Looks like I stopped right before it got interesting. The first open level with multiple goals was a revelation, but there was so much on-rails gameplay to get there.
Toe-dipping:
Supermarket Shriek: Finished this one to the degree I could before it left XGP. Those last levels are merciless. All I got was the achievement for playing on a Tuesday.
Sonic Forces: The free play weekend did not convince me to buy. Kind of a cool idea to invent your own hero, but the platforming gameplay just isn’t compelling, and doesn’t feel well-tuned. I recall one place in particular where I had to have restarted more than 50 times due to an easily missable transition.
Forza Street: So very weird. Instead of racing, you basically play a rhythm game, pressing buttons to enter and exit corners and trigger the nitrous. And yet they think I’m going to spend real-world money to buy gold so I can buy chances to get more cars that all do the same thing. Or I could spend money to buy “credits,” which can’t actually be spent to buy anything of significance in the game. All of the worst elements of free-to-play garbage gaming with Forza branding.
