Game of the Month - November 2019

What has been your primary game this past month? It could have been a recent title, a new discovery, or something from your backlog. Or perhaps an old favorite you returned to years later? Honorable mentions are also welcome, these would be other games that you enjoyed this past month, but not the one you spent the most time enjoying.

For November my game of the month is:

  • Red Dead Redemption 2 (PS4), its hard to believe I am still playing this a year later, I must have well over 200 hours of time played by now. Many many many fish have been caught! So I’ve been really trying to finish up the main story, but Chapter 6 seems to never want to end. I can see the writing on the wall for awhile now, should be interesting to see how it all pans out.

Honorable mentions for :

Bridge Constructor : Portal
Particle Fleet: Emergence
Train Valley

What game defined November 2019 for you? What was your Game of the Month?

Oxygen Not Included. There’s no escape.

Mashinky

Outer Wilds. What a cool game.

Been trying to play something else but Out of the Park Baseball has taken almost all my gaming time. What a game.

Signed, 2021 World Series Champion Padres

Bard’s Tale IV, which has surprised the hell out of my by being deep, thoughtful, gorgeous, and just generally a lot of fun to play. I’d really love to see some future games adopt this combat model.

Honorable mentions to Hob (which I only recently got, but seems charming) and Northgard (which continues to both attract and frustrate me).

For me, likely a tie between Lord of the Rings Online and Warhammer 40k Inquisitor Martyr, followed closely by Strike Fighters 2 and Destiny 2. What a great month.

Can’t wait to play it… Aah, some day…

I made some progress in Divinity Original Sin 2 this month, but the game is so demanding I can’t play it if I’m not at 100% of my capacities. It’s really amazing.

But I spent most of my time playing Strikers 1945 II and The King of Dragons.

Thanks to the sale, I grabbed 20XX, Maldita Castilla and Mighty Gunvolt Burst. I almost finished the latter quite quickly (it’s a very short game, if you don’t play it over and over with different characters), before hitting the mandatory reflex-tied wall.
I hit that same wall pretty quickly on the third level of Maltida Castilla.
20XX is really a surprise: it came as a recommandation from an online friend to me, and looking at the description, it was anything but what I’d enjoy. But it’s actually very solid and enjoyable. Although it probably lacks in scope, it is the procedural Megaman advertised.

But my game of the month is Wildermyth, a very simple game that makes the vast majority of computer RPGs look like antiquated relics.

For the first two weeks of the month:
AI War 2 almost exclusively. I put an unhealthy amount of time into the game in just a couple weeks.

For the second half of the month:

Age of Wonders: Planetfall
I bought this on sale for PC a couple weeks ago but have actually been spending dozens of hours playing the Xbox One Gamepass version instead. The game is totally at home on this console. I love it.

I’m not sure which game I’ve played more this month, but my time spent with each pretty much splits the month right down the middle.

Infamous Second Son

Age of Wonders Planetfall a close second

I’m going to let 3 share the top slot this month. I like them all quite a bit and played a substantial amount of hours in each.
Ascenson: I’ve mostly played solo vs hard AI, but also played a handful of multiplayer with @scottagibson , who schooled me. Lots of fun!

Northgard: I’ve been playing the conquest mode and with the changing victory conditions it shakes things up nicely. I’ve had quite a few games that went down to the wire.

Dead Cells: I think I’ve visited a little under half the areas (looked at a walkthrough list). It started off fairly easy, but has begun to push back harder. I don’t know if I missed something, but I can’t smash down to get the ruins in the ground. It took several tried to beat the boss on the bridge. Felt good to finally beat him.

Honorable Mentions
Finally, I month where they are all winners. Not a bad game in the bunch.
Mini Metro
Train Valley 2
Lonely Mountains Downhill
Metro Exodus
Outer Wilds

I finally tired of StarSector after about three months of constant play. I’ve long since gotten my money’s worth, and put it aside for now until it hits 1.0 (hopefully in 2020).

Thanks to the Qt3 hivemind, I reinstalled Lord of the Rings Online and revived some alts that I created many years ago. Good to be back; MMO as comfort food.

I’m trying to learn AI War 2. Far more accessible than the first.

So is it all fixed and great now? Didn’t they shift to the sequel, or are they still updating Martyr?

The Martyr 2.0 patch made an ok game into a good/pretty great game. They also put out the stand alone expansion called Prophecy, which seems to have decent reviews on Steam.

Probably Slay the Spire again. Just working my way up the Ascensions.

I’ve also played Starsector to death over the last month and plan to set it aside for the time being until 1.0 comes out (go knows when that will be).

The other one I dived back into full throttle this month was Planetfall, firing up a scenario against the AIs is just a damn fine way to spend some game time. The replay value is very strong in this one.

No love for Tomb Souls Jedi? That would be mine. Outer Worlds wouldn’t get a look in.

They’re still updating it, as it just got weekly events, for example, and more endgame content. It’s at its best yet.

Gotta be The Outer Worlds. I had a lot of fun with it. Second place by a hair is Pillars of Eternity: Deadfire. Turn-based mode has really energized me to play through this.

Indeed.