What game did you play last?

[artymon I\/]

Ingress and Uncharted

I finally got my first portal accepted!!! To be fair, I'd only tried to submit one other portal, but there's not much in my area that hasn't already been marked/submitted.

[Josephine Fowl]

Our Life: Beginnings & Always

A super sweet and nostalgic visual novel, set in Southern California. The story spansk three summers at three different points in your life - childhood, adolescence, and adulthood - as you live your life alongside the new boy next door, and experience your summers together as well as your developing relationship.

It's an amazing game with a surprising amount of replayability for a visual novel, as you are allowed to set your comfort and relationship level with the (potential) love interest. Potential because you don't have to date him. Actually, you don't even have to be friends with him if you don't want to.

Personally, I **** love this game. It came out in December, but is not 100% completed as there is still content coming out throughout the year. If you have like 6-8 hours to spare, I really do genuinely recommend this game, because it really hits that nostalgic nerve, and the love interest, Cove, is an actual sweetheart. He is also canonically undiagnosed autistic. It's not mentioned in game, but the devs have confirmed on their tumblr, and it's really well written.

Edit: Should've mentioned this as the very first thing: the game is free and can be found on Steam and Itch.io. It does have some DLC, one free and two that are like $5. The free DLC is just a bunch of voiced name options, which I really recommend, it's a little cringe but like in a good way. The paid DLCs are great, as they add more content to each summer. At this point there's only DLC for the first two summers though, but more will be released later in the year.

[artymon I\/]

Most recent games for me are Ingress and Assassin's Creed Odyssey.

I also did a little Among Us.

Thinking about picking up Crimson Skies again...

[Josephine Fowl]

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity

I hadn't touched it in a while but I couldn't remember why I stopped. I remember now. I'd played myself into a corner, that would be too much work to get out of. So now I either have to do a lot of mindless and annoyingly difficult grinding or start over.

And so I decided to just close the game and not do anything about it, lol.

[artymon I\/]

Most recent games for me are Ingress and Assassin's Creed Odyssey.

I also did a little Among Us.

Thinking about picking up Crimson Skies again...

Literally, rinse and repeat. Haven't picked up CS yet, still working it over.

...also contemplating Mercenaries. Prison Break man.

[Battery]

AC Valhalla, just finished up the Snotinghamscire arc last night.

[artymon I\/]

^Noice!

Ingress and Oregon Trail are my last played games. OT has lowkey become a fave for casual passtime....the roleplay element alone is hilarious.

[jsreed5]

I've been playing a lot of shoot'em ups recently, specifically an old freeware shmup called Blue Wish Resurrection Plus and the Cave classic Mushihimesama.

Limited Run Games has just opened preorders for Mushihimesama on the Nintendo Switch, and one item for purchase is a miniature arcade cabinet!

[artymon I\/]

Been holding off on posting here for some reason. Think this was around the official downturn, didn't quite realize, figured someone else would post....

Anyway, this'll be another thing I can edit and update. Just for my own records and amusement.

Started getting back into Overwatch. Hadn't played it in literal years, though I use my Widowmaker mousepad everyday. Never was much good, but it was fun getting into scenarios, either those high octane pushes where the clock's out of time and you're givin' it all ya got, or pull off a sneaky play of the game, or just end up befriending the enemy team.
Might just be me being sensitive, but it feels like the community for it isn't very generous, to say the least, downright salty and savage.
It's like, if you're not doing top tier plays and such, then you get flamed. Like bruh, chill. Some of us are just casual, easing into it.

Update
12/25/2022

Well, I have maintained my Christmas tradition of playing Black Flag. By next year, it'll have been out for 10 years. Wild.

I also did a little bit of Mafia II. That is unquestionably a Christmas game, despite the majority taking place in summer, the opening bits take place in winter and even feature some classic tunes.

*cough* and it's an excuse to drive around and cause chaos *cough*

Couple weeks back, I happened to find GTA V in a Goodwill. It'll load, but it seems to be having a few bugs. Might just get it on PS4.

Update
1/2/2023

Also completed my New Years tradition of spending it with Nate, Elena, and Sully.
....well, okay, it wasn't quite midnight, but look, if McCree can have High Noon anytime he wants, then I can have Low Midnight.

Officially think I've given up playing as McCree aka Cassidy in Overwatch. Widow, every now and then I can do good. But I've been sort of gravitating towards Zenyatta...and sort of actually doing pretty decent. Junkrat is sort of a guilty pleasure to play.
McCree as a character is...well, like the belt buckle says. And in proper hands he's a deadly character. I'm just not quite skilled enough.

Also have gotten some surprisingly good meme runs with Reinhardt. Literally just doing some challenges and somehow doing good too.

Update
2/15/2023

Wound up getting a rather high compliment in OW the other day; on defeat, one of the enemy team guys said they needed a better Zen, like ours, aka me
It's weird, just as soon as I think I'm getting good with a character, I turn to garbage, then pick up a random character and somehow do fantastic.
I think the game algorithm "matches" you with people that are adept at handling whatever you've been recently playing as, so when you go against the grain, so to speak, you beat the match-making and essentially break it for an easier win.

GTA V is still not quite a happy camper. I was going to try and uninstall, then reinstall and hope for some sort of patch update...only to discover my 360 no longer desires to connect to the internet.
Smart chap, probably for the best, but c'mon mate, be a team player, hey?

So still nothing on that front. Which is quite a shame. I just want to play as Trevor, hijack a jet, and go bananas.

*sighs*

Maybe when...or hopefully if/when I get a PS5....

Update
2/22/2023

Well, I uninstalled then re-installed GTA. Managed to have a run, played through the first level...then shut it off, came back a day later annnnd it basically just said no. Several times. It loaded once, ran around for a minute, then it froze. Restarted, couldn't even go to load screen.

I'm pretty sure it's not my device. I hope it's not.

Update
5/30/2023

started replaying infernal machine!!!!

Update
7/19/2023

^Still sort of playing...had an issue last time I tried booting it

Been playing some more Overwatch. So, doing the All Roles queue (for XP points) when I started a couple months back, the game algorithm gently pushed me into healer roles....and I decided, yeah, maybe that's it for me then. Support the team and win.

It seemed to be working for a bit.

Til it wasn't. It went from guaranteed win to....eh...maybe you can help heal someone. As I'd been getting ganked literally in the time it took to walk back from spawn.

Now, the All Roles has been placing me into tank roles. To which I was like....wt-d'arvit. I don't know what the heck to do with that. Granted, I had played a little Rein to farm mitigation points and even managed a few good runs and funny rounds.
Then I tried Dva, she's pretty easy/simple. Shoot your guns, absorb bad stuff, then nuke whoever's left.
Buuuuuut everyone always seems to manage to escape my nuke and I get popped out of the mech seemingly way too easy.
Then under Mystery Heroes, I began getting Junker Queen....and well...long story short, I sort of realized I was doing pretty decent with her.
To the point next time on all roles, I tried her and did dang good. She has this crazy aggressive in your face style...which sort of vibes with me. Go in hit 'em all hard and they're dead before they know it.
Only thing is, she needs someone to heal her. She has the passive heal, which helps a ton along with the commanding howl.
But it still helps to have someone that can even vicinity heal her, like a Moira orb or a Lucio. Just help sustain/elongate her a bit.

Update
9/18/2023

^In that regard, I've come to find I have games where I'm a god(dess?) as Junker Queen and other games where I'm lucky if I can make it out of spawn. *shrugs*
I still like playing her though. Her and Junkrat and Moira are my current three go-tos.

Finally got back to Infernal Machine. Kind of glad now that I waited to finish it. Fate of Atlantis is heralded to many as the real Indy 4, thus logically, Infernal Machine would be Indy 5.
Had to reinstall it after some issue or another.

Just got done with that infamous bit with herding Volodnikov to get that gear. There's just so many things with that.
But I think I semi-broke him.
I vaguely remembered you had to do something with the stone blocks, move them so he can't use the tunnel to cut through or whatever, so I pushed them in one space on either side and Volodnikov got hung up. Like he ran smack into one of the blocks and was just chilling there when I got up to him. For whatever reason, this didn't trigger the cutscene and I was legit able to run up and punch and whip him.
This did nothing but illicit him to shout for help and it honestly made me feel a little guilty.
He is sort of a Commie, yeah. But he and Indy do end on good terms. Makes me wonder what Volodnikov does get up to after parting ways with Indy. Maybe he goes back to Russia and forwards his notes to Spalko?
That's sort of an endearing trait of Indy's. He literally does not care your race, gender, age, nationality. Or at least, he doesn't let it stop him from befriending you.
Then if you screw him later on, well, shame on you. You're getting yours.

Second thing I wanted to amuse myself over: Everyone gets so riled up with the aliens and time travel......but here in the 90s Indy's casually smacking pre-historic robots and traveling into dimensional planes.
Those are the people that you could mindwipe them of Raiders, plop it into theaters and they'd tear it apart.

Update
9/21/2023

Infernal Machine.
The last cutscene on Nub's Tomb level raises some thoughts. When greeted by Sophia, she asks him for the parts and "we'll get you out of there"
Indy crosses his arms and goes, "Who's 'we'?"
To me, this seems to imply that at some point in claiming the final machine part, Nub's battery thing (or creepy soul capsule thing, if you prefer the extended RP version...which I kinda do), Indy had something of an epiphany or began to think, y'know, maybe these machine parts aren't suitable to be handed over to anyone, USA or not.
This is a man with the memory of Hiroshima and Nagasaki fresh on the brain. He knows the US government basically will stop at nothing to secure themselves as the dominant world power. A man that's seen more war and strife than he probably cares to remember.
He recognizes that these strange artifacts are powerful, more so than the average potshard. And, frankly, he's already been screwed by the government with the whole Ark fiasco....so....at some point, he's begun to wonder if it's right to be giving these over to Turner. Maybe he can talk about it Sophia...but nope, he's there too.

Then Volodnikov pops up and has the gauchos to go ahead and ask for the parts. Like, dude, did you really think that was gonna happen?
(Actually, I nearly forgot for a second.)

And then after handing them off to Sophia and Turner, Indy just decides, well, I can't let those idiots go messing around with the Babylon tower site and travels back there. Was his intent to rescue/stop/prevent or to full on....well...gank Turner like he ends up doing?

Update
9/24/2023

On defeating Turner - and it's worth noting that Indy asks for the part from Turner. As opposed to making threats or whatever. He just goes, "Yo, you've got the Part I need, hand it over"....Turner is then under the impression that Indy wants to use the Machine himself to "take over"...which Indy refutes...and Turner simply disappears himself and the "boss" battle is on.

Now, interesting, on defeating him, there's a music zing rather unlike any other thus far. It's almost...it almost is the musical equivalent of an exaggerated gasp. Like, "Saaay, whaaaat? O M G, did you really just kill him? Wasn't he a good guy?" in a sarcastic way.
I can imagine for many, this may have been a young person's first or one of their first, games when it came out. And for older/more seasoned fans, it might resonate well with government corruption.

To a degree, in Skull and Dial, the government subplots came off a bit annoying....but they do hold water I think. Any source of power is almost bound to be evil. Or willing to use that power to keep the power by any means necessary.

Update
10/7/2023

I swear it's been a challenge just getting Infernal Machine to freakin' run.

For some reason, the program I was using decided it didn't want to run anymore. Luckily, I didn't lose any of my saves, so eventually I found another method of getting it up.
Oh my odin, this was the old way I used to play it, with all the glitchy effects, could never use the rocket launcher or the machine gun...and picking items up was always a roulette wheel of "Will it kill the game or not"
But he's running for now.

"Marduk! You're one of those angry god I'll bet." Folds arms. "Ugly too."

Only Indiana Jones would invade some weird interdimensional domain and call the supreme overlord ugly and angry.

Again, I have to re-emphasize what a basketballs out crazy game this was. It went from being this sort of standard, explore an area, find some stuff, do some things, oh no, the Russians are here, betting gank 'em to "Here's this weird portal in a trippy world. Good luck!"

Could you imagine if they adapted this for a movie? People would lose their minds.

Later...

Well, I might have to turn in my adventurer hat.

Not only did I clean forget to pass by the Monkey Island area, I also forgot how I'm supposed to defeat Harpie Marduk...and wound up consulting a walkthrough. I vaguely had remember the Sol Jewels were involved...look, the real victory was getting the game to run, alright? Lol.

Update
10/8/2023

"I still can't speak Hovitos...but I guess this time it won't matter."

Update
10/22/2023

Was working on my Supernatural cassette and played a little Uncharted....for like the first time in forever! For a game that's pushing 15 years, it holds up. Looks, story, dialogue. Slightly have to yell at Nate sometimes when he moves in a derpy fashion.
I was impressed with myself, under Hard, I got through the plumber/sewer area in about 2 or 3 tries. That place is the bane of my existence. *shudders*

Update
11/12/2023

Taking a break on Uncharted for now (wanna save it for my New Years playthrough )

Well. I pulled a trigger and got Spider-Man 2. I'm excited but also scared. Everyone everywhere is hyping it so much. Like, we all knew Indy 5 wasn't going to be Raiders or whatever. But Spidey is such a precious treasure!!
There's a heck of a lot of stuff going on. Haven't quite gotten my bearings. Super early in, but enjoying so far!
I don't know why, but I'm a little on the fence with Pete's Iron Spider / Ock arms....course, my fave ult ability in the first game was the Rock Out ult where he whips a guitar from Z-Space and uses sound waves to knock his opponents back (best utilized on a rooftop )
So yeah, for now I'm gonn savor it like a wine or whiskey.

Update
11/23/2023

Still savoring Spidey.

(Yeah, yeah, go ahead and make your internet jokes.)

Can't help but feel slightly overwhelmed that there's just so much to do and so many intricate little things I'm gonna be bound to miss or accidentally pass on.
Kinda was a little bummed when I discovered the Chrysler Tower was missing from the city! I swung around a good couple of minutes going to myself that it should be just around here....and alas, nope. Empire State was there, but no Chrysler. Apparently, there's a real-world building copyright reason.
Like for heaven's sake.
Give my guy somewhere to climb on!
Getting my butt kicked a little bit, but I'm getting my bearings.

Update
12/3/2023

Played some Fortnite off my Switch. Wasn't a very serious playthrough, but .... ah, yeah I did alright. Technically, I didn't die, but I quit because my connection was getting shoddy.

Haven't played Spider-Man in a couple days....haven't quite had the opportunity. Left Pete, MJ, and Harry at Coney Island.
Saw a story where someone maxed out Spidey's level by literally just doing thousands and thousands of flip tricks. Lol. That's dedication.

Think I'll put in a round of Overwatch.