I can’t give enough praise to Snowrunner. Need more players who enjoy simulation games!

Space Engineers

Ares at War scenario with Industrial Overhaul and Weapon Core to make everything as complicated as possible

I’m playing the first ratchet and clank on rpcs3.

I have to get back into Hollow Knight to get ready for Silksong, it is a need I feel in my bones

Battleblock Theater and Noita, but I’m having trouble with controller support for the latter. It doesn’t seem to work on Steam Deck when it’s docked.

Enjoying Powerwash Simulator on my SteamDeck this week, it’s the perfect game to chill and listen to podcasts as you play.

Also been enjoying Skate 3 on the PS3, I’m pretty close to completing the game so have been working on the last few challenges.

Torchlight 2

I’m playing Ninja Gaiden 2 (Xbox 360 version) this week. It was a little fiddlier to set up emulation for but it does run well in Xenia Canary albeit with some minor graphical glitches. I’m playing on “Path of the Warrior”, the harder of the two modes available to a new player.

I have mixed feelings about it so far, 9 chapters in out of 14. I can see why people call Ninja Gaiden Black a masterpiece and this game a “flawed gem”. They’re also surprisingly different: NGB was an adventure game with great combat - it had exploration, puzzles, platforming and even an almost Metroidvania-like hub area you backtracked back and forth through. Ninja Gaiden 2 feels like Itagaki watched a Best Action Movie Hallway Fight Scenes compilation DVD, snorted a humongous line and said “watch this drive”. It’s just linear murder hallway after murder hallway in a story that doesn’t even pretend to make sense or have chapter-to-chapter coherence anymore.

It does have some really good design ideas though - I love the way health works in the game for example. Taking damage also reduces your maximum health, but after each combat you’re healed up to your reduced maximum. The first time you interact with a Save Point restores and fully heals you, which encourages aggression and creates a similar feeling of “gotta push to the next bonfire” and imminent relief when you do find it that you get in Souls games. The rare item that increases your Max HP also fully restores and heals you, which creates an interesting decision point: can you afford to wait to cash in the HP increase in order to effectively have an extra Max Potion for a tough battle?

There is also definitely something to be said for the frenetic combat, for better or worse. NGB was still fast, but always remained measured and deliberate. NG2 combat is just pure amphetamine-fuelled rabid frenzy. When it works right it’s amazing - the first chapter for example is pretty much perfection. Fighting human enemies like ninjas that let you use your whole toolkit of techniques and dismemberment strategically is where NG2 shines. However, you can see the game’s famously unfinished and rushed state pretty much everywhere. Lots of fights and chapter stages feel unfun in an untested way.

Some bosses - like Genshin and Volf - are pretty good, but lots of bosses are downright bad even for a series famous for bad bosses. Gigadeath and Water Dragon are among the worst bosses I’ve ever had the displeasure to fight in all of gaming.

The best way to describe it then is this: 50% of the time it feels like the best action game ever made, and 50% of the time it feels like the worst action game ever made. Is that tradeoff worth it? I don’t know, but the highs are damn high and getting into the combat flow in a fun fight and seeing the carnage after is something special.

Still enjoying my playthrough of Sea of Stars. Currently 30 hours in and I’m liking every minute of it. It somehow reminds me of Final Fantasy VIII and I love it. The only thing that’s a minor nuisance for me is the fact that there’s no journal, I’m going pretty slomo here and there are times where I don’t play for 2 weeks and I’m like “where was I again?”

Jade Empire, baby! Finally got back around to it. I usually return to this game every so often but this is my first time playing it on a steam deck. Pretty easy control customization straight out of the box in the game itself. Also the first time playing it with gamepad in a while so lots of nostalgia from my old Xbox days.

Picked No Man Sky back up, this game is so very beautiful and incredibly fun. I’m pretty sure I’m not even done with the tutorial and I’ve already been to several planets and I’m slowly learning the languages.

When I don’t have time to dig in, Castle Crashers just got an update. Yeah, that game from Newgrounds that’s nearly 20 years old. You can make your own character now.

I decided to reinstall Cult of the Lamb since the new expansion was announced. There’s a lot of stuff in that game that I straight up forgot existed lol.

Lost Records: Bloom & Rage is currently 30 % off. Haven’t played much so far.

Finally got my PS2 emulator working so I’m playing Tony Hawk’s underground 1, Jak and Daxter: the precursor legacy.

I’m flipping between a bunch of games besides those: Disco Elysium mobile, Dead Cells, Undertale, Spiritfarer, HAAK, and Afterplace

I’m playing through Outward a second time. It is such a beautiful game, and I really enjoy some of the unique aspects of it like the lack of fast travel.