Upon realizing that I’ve been playing Team Fortress 2 for a decade I thought “oh, maybe one of these days I’ll get it right…”
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I wish I could tell you that I spent countless hours playing TF2, but sadly they are not countless - Steam can tell me exactly how much of my time was lost to that game. I don’t even want to look 
I switched to Hawken cuz I love mechs, but that got old. I was thinking of doing Overwatch or Player Unknown Battlegrounds but both sound like big time sucks. Splatoon scratches that itch now.
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I moved over to Kerbal so I could run a small space program out of the living room, apparently based on the idea of stranding Kerbalnauts in various places and then figuring out how to get them out of there.
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Ooh, mechs, that sounds cool!
“PC servers will shut down on January 2nd, 2018”
Damn it!
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Wolfenstein II is reportedly coming out for the switch, along with DOOM, at a later date. I’ll assume those will not be the best ports of either game, but the fact that they are coming out at all is remarkable.
Random Switch recommendations:
- Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle
- This is sort of XCOM lite with some fantastic movement refinements.
- Golf Story
- It’s an RPG where you play golf, in the style of old-school golf video games. I don’t even like golf generally.
- Picross S
- It’s not a new Picross 3D, but it’s still pretty good.
- Stardew Valley
- I haven’t talked myself into buying this on a third platform yet, but the convenience of the Switch might be either the best or worst thing to happen to that game.
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Thats the one with sniper luigi right?
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I have two games on my list right now, but I’m forcing myself to finish BOTW before I get them;
I have a four year-old son who I ostensibly bought the Switch to share with. Any recommendations that would work for him/us? Probably going to get Mario Kart because I think he could handle that. Or I could just admit that I got the Switch for me and buy him a DS.
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I’m currently going through The Turing Test, which was marked down in the Halloween sale. It’s not exceedingly difficult, and a little predictable too, but it’s scratching my puzzle itch.
I’ve also been playing Engare, which is a neat little geometry/math puzzle game. Ars Technica reviewed it recently, and it got my interest. It can be mildly frustrating at points, but gives very satisfying spirograph-like pattern payoffs when solutions are found.
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With a predilection for puzzle games, I do hope you’ve had a chance to take The Talos Principle for a spin by now, yes?
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Looks like I got that one in 2015 (wow, time flies), and 100% achievements. The Turing Test is really reminding me heavily of that one, due to some similarity in puzzle mechanics and a focus on philosophy and thought experiments. The Turing Test seems like it has a more limited scope, however.
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In that case, I may very well have to pick up The Turing Test, especially if it’s marked down for the holiday.
With mention of a focus on philosophy and thought experiments, I do hope you’ve had a chance to take SOMA for a spin as well. I really enjoyed Amnesia: The Dark Descent, but feel SOMA may have been Frictional’s finest hour. Also on sale for Halloween!
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Yup, and it is way better than it has any reason to be.
This it totally playable by yourself, but it works really well with 3 other people. I’ve played it with two different groups, including some more casual gamers, and it went over very well. Even with 4, there’s more tasks than players in many cases, so there’s still some juggling involved.
Also good for couch co-op:
- Overcooked! (2-4 players)
- This can be extremely stressful, but if you work out a plan and communicate well, it can be sublime.
- Chariot
- This is a co-op platformer. It is extremely well constructed, but it can test a relationship.
Apparently I own this. It looks pretty rad. I should probably play it some time.
I do think Mario Kart is a good choice. There are options for automatically accelerating and steering, although neither will prevent him from participating. They are set per-player, so you can play your way and he can play his. It’s silly, but the plastic wheel to stick the controller in is pretty great for a kid.
Mario + Rabbids and Mario Odyssey can be good for spectator co-op, and there is a 2-player mode in Odyssey where one player is Mario and the other is Cappy (the hat). You mentioned earlier that you don’t care for Mario games, so it may not be a good fit in that case. It is absolutely a Mario 3D platformer, although it does differentiate itself from 64, Sunshine, and the Galaxy games in what I’ve played so far.
Another game my daughter is more interested in watching than playing is Shantae: 1/2 Genie Hero. It’s a 2D platformer with an interesting art style and fantastic animation. It’s also pretty brutal, so if platformers are not your thing, definitely stay away.
Stardew Valley can work if you involve them in decisions like naming the animals, what crops to plant, what gifts to give, what to focus on today (farming, foraging, fishing, mining, etc.)
If I think of any others, I’ll let you know.
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SOMA has been on my wishlist for a while, but I’m trying to limit my spend so it’ll probably have to wait for another sale. The info I’ve seen has me very interested, though.
I wasn’t able to get into Amnesia for some reason… the trailers I saw seemed like it would be a good fit, but when I started playing it just didn’t grab me. Not entirely sure why.
One note: it is definitely smaller in scope and easier. I’ve just finished The Turing Test, with 7 hours played… for comparison, I have 41 hours for The Talos Principle. I had fun with it, though… it was a nice break from other things, and the puzzles had enough difficulty to be satisfying to solve. I was already familiar with the philosophical topics, so I kept wanting to argue points, but that’s going to be an issue with any of this genre of game, I think.
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Okay, Mario Kart it is, for now. I’ll also be able to bring it down to the Waetherman Family X-Mas, which should be fun with multiple kids around. Can four people play Mario Kart? Two JoyCons required? I guess I could also get Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime to bring down as well. That requires two JoyCons I assume?
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You can use two pairs of JoyCons, or a combination of JoyCons and Pro Controllers. I think there may be a problem with using more than 2-3 JoyCon pairs due to Bluetooth limits, but that shouldn’t be a problem for most people due to the cost. A pair of JoyCons is like $80 and a Pro Controller is like $70, so the JoyCons are a better deal if you’re trying to enable 4-player. I’m assuming the same for Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime, but I’ve only played it on the Xbox One. Nintendo has pretty good iconography for which play styles are available for a particular game in their store.
OK, because I have poor impulse control, I can now confirm a few things:
- There is literally a Previously on Wolfenstein video that plays at the beginning of the game that covers most of the story material that you need to catch up.
- This is not equivalent to actually playing the game, which is quite good as well.
- The game forces you to make the same decision as you did in the first game that split the timeline.
- While this is ultimately an arbitrary decision, playing the first game gives it more emotional weight, and there are some consequences that make it worth it (in my opinion) to replay the game with the opposite decision.
- The new game is brutal, as was the previous one. If you have any triggers, they will likely be activated at some point.
- The Story, writing, acting, and action are excellent in both, at least to the point that I have played.
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Picked up another puzzle game currently on sale on Steam: The Room Two. Currently going for $0.49. Very Myst-like in atmosphere, though with much less freedom of movement and more focus on an individual set of puzzle objects at a time.
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I grabbed Zuma’s Revenge and Peggle Nights from Steam. I’m really on the cutting edge of gaming here 
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Watch Dogs will be free on Uplay for the next week.
This of course is dependent on you a) wanting to play Watch Dogs, and b) willing to have Uplay 
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Zachtronics made a new game, which may be their most accessible yet. It also has an exceedingly clever solitaire game in it like in Shenzhen I/O. And like the last game, I expect they will likely release Sigmar’s Garden as a stand-alone game.
Also, it allows you to export your solutions as animated gifs:
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I finally finished Breath of the Wild! I had worked through all of it and then got a little burned out, decided to take a break. I ended up taking more than a month off, and in that time I almost lost the plot, but when I came back to it this week it was like riding a bike. Had to hone my combat skills a bit and grind my way up to some upgraded armor before taking on Calamity Ganon but in the end it wasn’t that hard. What an ending though!
Also, played my first “real” video game with my son this week. Took @LockeCJ’s suggestion and got Mario Kart. My son loves it, even if he’s not so good yet. I’m starting him off playing with the joystick instead of the motion controls because I thought it would actually be easier for him, but I’m not so sure. Either way though, using a joystick is an essential life skill and he’s better off learning it early. 
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