With the flood of AAA titles this month, hopefully everyone had time to play some of the truly fantastic releases we had this month.
My GOTM is without question Battlefield 1, for once a decent Battlefield campaign and just fantastic multiplayer, maybe even my all time favorite in the entire franchise. I am gonna hit rank 50 soon!
Honorable mentions for Civ VI, The Park, and Titanfall 2.
Thanks to my discovery of mission editing tools and how to properly enable Gravis Ultrasound, TIE Fighter.
Hitman final episode has been great, putting the game definitively among classics of the stealth genre.
For me it was Shadowverse - which is the Granblue Fantasy folks doing Hearthstone (just hit Steam), and Runestone Keeper that get the nods for this month.
Easy-peasy, Civilization VI. There are some things that need to be fixed - AI sticking with old units, some diplomacy. That being said, I haven’t had this much fun playing Civ in a long time. After 4 games on a standard size map, I do think I’m now getting ready to put it on hold for a little while so they can hopefully improve some of those weaknesses, but I’m pretty pleased with it’s initial state. It needs some attention for it to reach classic status. I still think the flow of the game would be better getting rid of 1 unit per tile because the military aspect of the game is tedious enough where I just want to take over what I absolutely need to and no more.
Honorable Mention: Gemcraft Chasing Shadows, Train Valley, Infested Planet, Invisible Inc
Take it or leave it: Grim Dawn
I played Civ VI, at least a bit. And I liked it. But for me, the game of the month is Elder Scrolls Online. I got sucked back in for the holiday event and am enjoying it all over again. The One Tamriel update on 5 October effectively removed levels, making it so you can go anywhere you want and do stuff with whomever you wish… so it feels a lot more like a single-player Elder Scrolls game.
Grim Dawn without question. I’ve been completely obsessed. What a game.
DOOM is a great runner-up. I’m still making my way through this excellent game as well. Kind of funny that DOOM is my go-to game for relaxing when I get too tense from Grim Dawn.
Destiny: Rise of Iron or Stellaris with the Leviathans DLC and Heinlein update.
As surprised as anyone, mine’s Skyrim Special Edition. I’ve already doubled the time invested over Civ VI. Who knew? It helps my son is also playing it on his XBO and we are sharing our adventures with one another.
Elder Scrolls Online for me as well. [quote=“Charlatan, post:6, topic:126760”]
it feels a lot more like a single-player Elder Scrolls game.
[/quote]
This might be a negative for most MMO players, but not for me. Other people suck.
For me it’s Shadow Warrior 2. In many ways, it’s the game I wish Borderlands 2 was. I’m having a great time playing it.
As for runner-ups… I didn’t have as much gaming time this month as usual. Most of my gaming time was spent in Guild Wars 2, which is kind of my “comfort food” game, but if I had to pick a different runner-up… maybe SHENZEN I/O or Grim Dawn.
I started playing Ghostbusters (the 2009 one that had the original cast) again and remembered how much I love that whole deal. Great Halloween game too! So that’s my vote.
I finally got around to Renowned Explorers: International Society, which had been sitting on my backlog for quite a while. What was I thinking, waiting this long? It’s both awesome and pretty much exactly for me.
Runner up was probably Pathfinder Adventures on iOS, which was perfectly pleasant and worth the time, but I also don’t particularly miss it now that I’ve moved on.
Civ VI with a side of Hearthstone.
I have to add that in between f2p games like Gwent, Paladins, The Crew (given for free by Ubisoft past month) and others (I just started Duelyst) it’s a great time to be a cheapass gamer.
I keep meaning to finally finish Shadow Of Mordor, Tomb Raider or Divinity OS, or play some Forza 6, Sunset Overdrive or Banner Saga 2. But thanks to the Xbox One’s BC feature (and Games with Gold), I keep going back to 360 games: October was all about Red Dead Redemption, Lost Odyssey, Assassin’s Creed II (still have the shrink wrap on AC: Unity!) and Forza Horizon.
Waaaait what? TALK TO ME SON.
For me, it would likely be a mix of (in order) Shadow Warrior 2, Elder Scrolls Online, Lord of the Rings Online and Homefront: The Revolution.
Mission editing tools have been around forever, but I hadn’t bothered teaching myself how to use them because the only ones I knew of were primitive. TIE Fighter Workshop is vastly more usable than the ones I was previously aware of, so I’ve been teaching myself how to use it. About the only thing you can’t do is add recorded dialogue, but you can add new battles with briefings, questions and entire missions.
The one I’m working on is an Interdictor holding a Mon Cal in place while a Star Destroyer is on the way, but its fighters aren’t adequate to hold off an entire Cruiser’s fighter supply, so the player gets rerouted to hold the line. It gets really ugly really fast and I keep making it uglier.
How do you play the missions once they’ve been created?
You create dummy battles to hold them (the game supports up to 12 more) and you can play them like a tour of duty or in the combat chamber. I’m just using battle 14.