It follows the movie, not the book.

It's early access. I think there's only one map that's huge and has you spawn and fight objectives in different spots. That or the couple maps all look very similar.
There also seems to be only 1 game mode at the moment. 16 players drop on a planet, clear out some zones of bugs, then go and fortify a location and hold out until a drop ship shows up. That drop ship always lands a couple hundred meters from the defend location, so it's a mad scramble to the evac.

No big deal for me since I've not read the book and I've only seen the movie once. This game looks like it will essentially play very much the same as Aliens: Fireteam Elite.

Operation Harsh Doorstop has a starship troopers mod.

Vertigo 2. VR game, Half-life Alyx mixed with Rick & Morty. Fun.

System Shock remake is out and so far... really, really good.

Quite faithful to the original in many ways.

Thanks for the heads up on this since I was not aware this finally came out. I'll be buying it tonight.

I tried "Control" by Remedy....I could not deal with it. I enjoyed the Max Payne series as well as Alan Wake but "Control" goes places that is just too much. I loved the idea of a super secret agency that investigates supernatural things and reading top secret documents alongside an eerie building to explore and good gun fighting and physics and reality bending sci-fi themes but right out of the gate this game is just straight up satanic. Inverted black pyramids, a board or "council" of apparent unknown entities operating in the astral realm controlling events and people within the agency, a main character who appears to have a familiar spirit or some sort of entity manipulating her, possessed NPCs incessantly chattering things not understandable in a drone-like way that is intolerable to the ear and mind as they hang suspended and the obvious and ever increasing playing around with grossly dark and esoteric subjects matters. Its demonic in nature. The game almost made me sick in my attempt to play it. I was interested in the game and the Alan Wake related DLC it came with but Remedy went way too far with this one in my view. There was also some not so subtle predictive programming which I've increasingly spotted in games lately that is not coincidental in my opinion. The gaming side of the entertainment industry is likewise under the influence and sway of the very evil powers they invoke for our supposed "entertainment". I've thrown the game out. I don't do that often. I can't say for certain what exactly inspires these writers but I do know who and what it is that does inspire them ultimately. I wouldn't be surprised if some of these developers actually dabble in the occult and consume mind/mood altering drugs. Alan Wake is just spooky enough and ambiguous enough that I enjoyed it. Even after two play throughs I still don't really understand the story and more or less it just feels like a fun, kooky twilight zone story to me. "Control" is seriously off-putting and excessively dark. I really believe you can open yourself up to mental torment and worse if you play this game and others that take things too far. That goes for shows and movies too.

I was looking forward to an Alan Wake sequel but if Remedy goes to this kind of extreme with the game it will ruin it for me. I also read that apparently they are connecting all of their universes somehow. Because I did not end up playing "Control" or its DLC I don't know what they did with Alan Wake with regards to how the two stories interact. I wish they would keep Alan Wake separate and continue building on the original game but in the same Twilight-Zone/Twin Peaks style that is just slightly spooky alongside colorful and often kooky characters.

I recorded this today using real period Roland MIDI hardware, should whet your appetite.

Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order. Compared to Elden Ring or most Souls games, this was very short and easy. It was fun and it did look pretty though.

Warhammer Boltgun. Old fashioned shooter. More like the old Doom set in the WH40k universe.

I died more from falls than I did from combat in that game. Overall I think it's an excellent SW game and I loved the "big reveal" at the end.

Oh yeah, I know all about that. Particularly the wall running to a vine or something before you get force pull. I swear one out of ten times I would flat out miss. eight out of ten times I would clip through the dang thing, and the rest of the time I'd actually grab it.

Another month has gone (nearly) and this is what has been in my rotation

-- Dying Light. I've dropped 60 hours in to it so far. Overall I like it. The parkour is seamless and the melee combat visceral. One of the enemy types spawns continually and annoys me to no end which takes some of the shine off the game. I mean, zombies gotta shamble, right? These things are as fast and agile as the player. And after a certain point in the game they are endless. I'd like the game a lot more if they were not a thing. Or if they were rare. Or if they just stayed the way they were in the early stages, where they didn't appear unless the player made a loud noise.

-- PGA Tour 2K23. Good golf game. Dropped nearly 140 hours so far. I play in multiple online 'societies' which are tournament seasons where players compete on a ranked leaderboard style setup. We have one here at SimHQ too. I've got like six of them going at the mo.

-- Age of Wonders 4. Never played a previous entry in the series, but picked this up on a whim a few weeks ago. Sort of plays like a cross between Civ 6 and TW Warhammer. A good 4X game with tactical, turn-based combat. Dropped about 55 hours so far. In that time I've been able to complete six campaigns. The pace is faster than Civ, although game speed can be altered if you want to slow it down.

-- Automobilista Motorsport Simulator 2. About 130 hours. In the past three years or so I've snapped up virtually every good racing sim. Bought a nice racing seat, a new wheel and pedals. It's a cool rig. And honestly I like every one of these sims. But AMS2 is the one I drive most often these days. The feel of the tarmac, the physics, the soundscape and everything combine to make it one hell of a good racing sim. Most of my time these days is spent running vintage sleds around old-time tracks in the time trial leaderboards. Cars like the 1969 F1 cars, Brabham BT26 and Lotus 49C. GPL with wings basically. Or Senna's title-winning McLaren MP4/6 with a big nasty V12. Tracks like Spa 1970. Monza '71. Brands' Hatch. Kyalami '76. Nordschliefe 1971 with the north and south loops like we ran in Grand Prix Legends. My goal is to stick it in the top ten at all these tracks, and I've had some luck doing so. Great racing sim, this.

DCS

IL2


As usual......

Wow. The campaigns in that game are really short compared to the Total War games!

Yeah no doubt. But these campaigns have like four factions and much smaller maps than Total War. I could add factions but that's about what I've been going with. It's all very customizable anyway. For players that dig Civ and would want better combat it's a good choice.

Amidst the massive backlog of games I have on Steam and PS5 (and I'm still buying more *rolls eyes* ) I'm playing Destiny 2 regularly for the first time since it came out. Also, Diablo IV this weekend but the rubberbanding is putting me off but a very good game and definitely better than 3. And then going between System Shock, Boltgun, Cyberpunk 2077 and DCS when I get the time lol

Whoa. Welcome back Mace!

He must have forgotten his long in credentials eh? Yeah, welcome back mate.

Speaking of Cyberpunk 2077, it's one of my favorite RPG's of all time. I played through the entire game three times.

I've played through it three times as well, different starts and totally different character builds as well.

Speaking of playing the same RPG again, I fell into Kingdom Come Deliverance again. This will be number 3, but this time all the DLC will be included. I never played any of them yet. I first played it on launch, then again about a year after. It occurred to me that was already 4 years ago now. It's just a great little game. Graphics still hold up and I think it's still got some of the best looking, or at least most realistic looking, woods in any video game. Some of the coolest and most realistic villages in an RPG as well. I just get a kick out of exploring that little corner of 1403 Czech countryside. Even the night sky is correct for the region and time period. You can even use it to help navigate.