[Video Games] What are you playing? (Omikron Edition)

After Spiritfarer, I went into my backlog to try out a bunch of different games: Eastward, Crystal Project, Symphony of War, Star Control Origins, My Time At Portia, The Planet Crafter, Dyson Sphere Program, Darkwood, and Outer Wilds.

I'm done with Darkwood and Outer Wilds after barely playing them. Both games seem excellent, but I'm not really in the mood for either. I've forced myself to play the latter 3 times (as it is GOTY/GOTG/GOTD/"BEST GAME EVAH!" for so many), and I just cannot get myself to really enjoy it. I *really* like certain aspects of it, but certain other aspects just kill the fun for me. I'm sure if I continue to force myself to play it, I'll find some enjoyment out of it, but I just have no interest in doing so. I think there's a XSX/PS5 patch for this that just came out, so if people want to give it a go, have fun. I do recommend giving it a shot if you can, as it is quite novel in design.

The other games, I'm undecided on. Some of them are way too incomplete (I guess that's why they call it Early Access), so I probably won't bother playing them much more (The Planet Crafter & Dyson Sphere Program come to mind). Symphony of War and Crystal Project scratch that old-school (S)RPG itch that few other games manage to do, though they're definitely lower budget games. I think I'll play these more when I'm in the mood for those things. Pretty undecided on Eastward, Star Control, and My Time at Portia at this point.

I will probably start some new playthroughs of Avorion and/or Astrox Imperium (basically Eve Offline) as well. I enjoyed those games quite a bit when they were in heavy development, and I think they've been polished quite a bit since then? Hopefully?

 

Yeah, the controls are probably the primary reason why I'm not bothering to play anymore. Needing to get from Point A to Point B (possibly repeatedly over a single play session) is such a vital part of the game, and given how much of a chore it is, it is not something I find myself enjoying. If not for that, I'd *probably* continue playing the game, even if a few other flaws annoyed me. I quickly figured out the "tips" that defenders of the game think magically fix the controls, but I'm still not interested.

 

Well it probably is a waste of time, so they're not wrong there.

Speaking of a waste of time, I played more of Elden Ring, and I think I'm probably done with it. That's right, I'm hating on Elden Ring and Outer Wilds.

I did finally play that Vampire Survivors game, which seemed to get a lot of buzz. I can see why people really like it. It is pretty dumb fun, but for $3, I enjoy it.

 

I'm just tired of the "GIT GUD" Souls mechanics, which often times just means you need to keep doing it until you get lucky enough, and too bad if you wasted an hour of your day. I've played these games since Demon Souls, so I'm intimately familiar with the mechanics, and it just kinda bores me at this point. Yeah, it can be fun to have that "danger" element behind every corner, every boss move, every platforming section, etc., but it isn't really all that fun for me anymore. My brain just goes, "Oh, I have to do this....again."

I did lie though. I ended up returning to the game yesterday, finished the next dungeon/boss...then I got frustrated trying to figure out how some random game mechanic worked. I ended up going online to figure it out, because that's another thing about these games. If you want to know about lore or how things work in-game, good luck figuring it out in-game.

Then after all that, I remembered I'm playing on a PC, and I don't play any of these games online. So thanks to mods, I'm actually enjoying the hell out of Elden Ring now.