Last post of 2023! What have you all been playing?
Bonus question, what was your favorite game of the year?
One of my children got me The Coffin of Andy and Lelyey for Christmas, so that’s in progress. Finally downloaded Alan Wake 2 (which I’ve been eagerly anticipating forever) since it was on sale, so that’s on deck.
I think the only game I played last year that actually came out in 2023 was Diablo 4 and I refuse to call that my favorite. (I did play most of the old Shadowrun games though and enjoyed them immensely.)
Kerbal Space Program 2 and Dark Souls 3.
KSP2 released their science patch this month that adds missions and a progression path to work through. It’s a lot more fun now that there are goals to work towards, and the missions are much better than what KSP1’s career mode offered.
I’ve been co-op’ing through DS3 with a buddy, which has been a fun way to tide us over until Elden Ring’s DLC comes out. I just wish there was a similar seamless co-op mod for DS3. Neither of us are interested in PvP, and it’s a little tedious to have to go through everything twice.
I’m with you on the KSP2 missions. Randomly generated missions may have endless possibilities, but handcrafted ones make much more sense and don’t have their quality determined by RNGesus. I remember once seeing a screenshot of a mission with the goal of testing launch clamps on the surface of the sun.
I’m with you on Dark Souls 3. The invasion mechanic was a fun experiment, but in practice, it just kinda blows. It would be nice to have a game with the good combat and level design of Dark Souls, without the invasions, that just lets you summon people from a damn menu like a normal video game.
If you have Elden Ring on PC, check out the seamless co-op mod. We were able to play through the whole game with very few issues. No invasions, no resummoning after bosses, normal use of torrent. It’s fantastic, and it’s shocking how well the mod works.
Yeah, it’s on my to-do list. “Seamless” co-op was never really my problem with FromSoft’s mulitplayer design, as they implemented really cool mechanics to make strangers want to help each other. The unfortunate part is that they put in additional mechanics to deter them from helping each other (invasions). The summon sign system is also neat but is prone to race conditions where the sign disappears before you can summon the person because someone else got there first. Things like that are why menus may not only be simpler but also better.
