Sims 3 has the most hours played in my steam library, but I haven't played it recently. I seem to go in cycles where it's all I'll play for a few weeks, and then I won't touch it for several months, and then I'll come back to it again. It's a great game to have mindless fun in, and last I checked, the mod community was still going strong.

I finished Arthur's act for We Happy Few, and now I kind of remember why I stopped playing the first time. Just finishing the first act feels like a complete game in itself, and it definitely takes up enough time to be a complete game, especially with how large the map is and with as many side quests as there are. It feels rather daunting to start all over again from scratch as Sally. I thought about playing another game before starting Sally's story, but I'm afraid that I'll do the same thing I did last time and end up not finishing it again.

It's still not a convincing one though. If it wasn't this weapon used, it would have been another, regardless of where the perp first saw it. I'm not a fan of Activision, but this isn't on them.

Oh, I'm not disagreeing at all. Even with all the evidence that video games aren't the problem, it's a convenient scapegoat to point a finger at while ignoring those who actually need to be held accountable.

Every time I think we've moved passed this as an argument, it pops back up. They'll blame anything but those they should be holding accountable.

People have always blamed video games for violence, even all the way back to Columbine. This isn't a new argument.

I did the same thing. It may have been because there weren't as many dlcs and expansions, but it just felt really dull. Plus it didn't have the completely open world like 3 did. Sitting through all those loading screens every time you wanted to go somewhere was a pain.

Sims 3, with all its faults, is the golden age. Long live the mods.

Me over here still messing around in Sims 3

They made a lot of changes this season to weapon crafting and modifying that's made it much easier than previous seasons. There's also a couple things that they made available across all difficulty tiers instead of the two higher ones. I haven't looked into specific specs, but I believe they've also buffed a bunch of the skills.
I don't know about mtx, but the paid battle pass is really only cosmetic stuff and doesn't affect core gameplay, if that's what you're worried about. There are things called "smoldering ashes" which serve as season permanent buffs, but they are available on the free battle pass, so everyone gets those.

Previously I saved my good rolled aspects “for later”… and later was usually beyond my playtime for a season :-)

Oh yeah, this 100%. I did the same thing, where I'd save aspects for when I'd get a "better" piece of armor/weapon. I'm enjoying a much cleaner stash.

(edit: spelling)

I made it about 3/4ths of the way through my second play of Lies of P before I decided I had to take a mental sanity break. I don't think I've ever played a game that has made me so angry and frustrated because I can't change the core trajectory of the story.
::: spoiler .
After learning the lore in the first run and actually hearing the King of Puppet's dialogue during his boss fight this time, I feel extra bad that I complained so much about it in my first playthrough. Geppetto can go fuck himself. I am begging this game to let me side with Romeo.
:::

To fill the Lies of P void, I decided to take another go at We Happy Few. I started a playthrough a few years ago and finished the first act, Arthur's story, but never got around to the rest of the game. I don't feel like I got to fully immerse myself in the world last time, so I'm going to take my time this round.

Diablo 4: Season 4 started this week, and I'm going with a fire/ice based sorcerer build. I'm liking the changes that they made to crafting and modifying weapons, and I've already made it to the paragon boards. I also got one of my friends playing with me this season with a similar build, so it'll be extra fun.

As far as art style goes, I'm not sure to be honest. Based on the artist's YouTube page of their drawing process, it seems akin to making something in Paint.
In general, I guess you could call it slice of life? iirc the "floor" is supposed to be on a spaceship, just showing the day to day activities.

It's a pretty simple concept with a lot of references, but Floor796 is fun to browse around when I'm bored. There's a few interactive bits too, if you can find them.

Every time I visit, I know where less and less places are, because they keep closing older places and opening new ones. It really doesn't feel like my hometown anymore. Last time I wanted to visit the music shop where I would practice piano and have recitals, only to drive by to see that it had been closed for a couple years.

How bad is it that I was absolutely going to believe this until I saw the source.

After 3.5 weeks and 140 hours, I finally finished Lies of P. The optional final boss was giving me so much trouble that it took me three days to get to a place where I was lucky enough to beat it. I told myself I wasn't going to play new game+ anytime soon, but towards the end of the week I ended up starting another round, so I guess I'm technically still working on this game.

Since I finally finished Lies of P (for the first time), I did a little cathartic rip and tearing with Doom '16. After all the trouble I had, it was very nice annihilating enemies with one BFG shot.

I've played Close to the Sun before on PC and liked it a lot, and it was on GamePass so I decided to play again. But it either wasn't as good as I remember or is just a bad console port. I'm leaning towards just being a bad port, because I like the story, and I like the characters (even though I have my very strong stance that an only child wrote this), but there was a lot of jankiness and jerkiness that was not present on the PC. Still finished it though, since it's not a very long game.

The IP reason is such a stupid argument in my opinion, because most of the time the company either ends up doing fuck all with it, or teases with a possible return only to say "lol jk nevermind".

Same here, I finished Ghostwire: Tokyo for the first time a few weeks ago and have always been a fan of The Evil Within. This sucks.

Nice! Thanks for the tip.

I assume you use block/perfect block to reflect? I've been using the Aegis legion arm to "block", so I guess I better brush up on actual blocking.

Yep, her second phase is giving me a lot of trouble.

I'm still working on Lies of P. I'm starting to feel like Jack Torrance in The Shining, but I am just half a chapter away from the end. Currently working on getting past the mid-chapter boss.

Back when I was on call, I had the bridge number set to this tune from Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs. It fit the mood I was in when answering, especially when it was 3 in the morning.

I just want a stable power grid, but noooooo, gotta keep the people who are different from them from just existing.

I'm convinced they would have done so much better if it hadn't been Epic exclusive. I know more than one person who won't play it on PC because of this.
It's a great game otherwise.

I really like Adam Savage as well. The tour he did of Grant Imahara's shop was very touching.

It seems like kind of an obvious answer, but Mister Rogers. I grew up watching him on PBS, and he was always so kind and gentle, and he always has good lessons and reminders to be had. I still watch his show whenever I'm feeling down and don't want to get out of bed. For me, they're motivating to get up and do something.

I'm glad you enjoyed Alan Wake 2! It is definitely a great game.

Still working on Lies of P. This game is taking me way too long to finish. I am still making progress, and I'm still having a good time, but I think I'm going to find a shooter style game to add to the mix so I don't get too burnt out or too bored with the combat style.

Not from what I've seen, unfortunately. Getting new instances to federate, at least from smaller, non Lemmy instances, is a bit of a pain. In the past I've done some testing with the two mags I currently own, and it looks like things don't always properly federate.
I've also noticed the same goes for voting. There's been more than once I've seen differing upvotes/downvotes on a thread depending on whether you're looking at it from kbin vs mbin.

Mbin has a very similar look and feel, aside from a couple of cosmetic things.

Have you been successful in obtaining ownership or moderation to any abandoned mags? I've requested to a couple that I occasionally participate in just in case they get targeted for spam, but I haven't heard yea or nay either way.

Finally finished out Diablo 4: Season 3, again after finding a group to tag along with to fight Duriel. I am very glad Diablo 4 doesn't make you complete every objective to get rewards and move on to the next chapter like 3 does, otherwise I'd have to deal with FOMO. Speaking of Diablo 3...

Diablo 3: Season 31 started last week, so I've shifted my Diablo focus to that. I'm going with a witch doctor build this round, and have already made my way through chapter 3.

Still working on Lies of P. I've been replaying earlier sections in order to level up some more, because fuck the King of Puppets and it being a two part fight. I just got into the weapon assembly aspect, so I've been playing around with different builds to see what works for me. And I think this game is teaching me button control and strategy? I'm used to panicky button mashing, but I've quickly learned I cannot do that here. Still, I'm happy with what little progress I've made this week.

Absolutely, that's one of the reasons I try to mix up my gaming between longer games that I know will take me a while and short games I get through in a night. I knew Ghostwire would take me longer because it's open world (the main story itself is kind of short, but I'm a completionist who has to get everything collectible), and I figure Lies of P will take me a while just from dying and restarting a bunch.

Managed to get all the campaign achievements for Ghostwire: Tokyo, including a really, really stupid RNG one. There's an extra mode called The Spider's Thread, but I don't think I'm going to focus on that anytime soon. I need a break from Tokyo lol.

I wanted something that wasn't very combat heavy next and picked Kona. For the most part it felt like Kholat meets The Painscreek Killings - a fun little detective walking sim that just lets you loose without really telling you where to go or what to do, all while taking place during a blizzard. I liked wandering around and trying to figure things out myself, and the narrator didn't seem too overbearing. I had a good time, up until the ending. It felt rushed and just kind of... happened. Like one moment you're going along in the forest looking for stuff, and then all of the sudden, here's an explaination for everything in a short scene! Now literally run to the end! Bye! I was hoping for something a little more drawn out.

I'm not really into soulslike games, but since Lies of P was on GamePass, I thought I might as well try it out. I'm actually having a good time playing it. I'm usually not great at soulslike since they can be frustrating, and I'm not a fan of "die in order to learn", but I'm making progress and the story is kind of interesting. I really like the atmosphere, very steampunk vibes. Some of the characters could have had a little more effort put into them, but that's a minor complaint overall.

Well that explains why a couple threads I posted weren't gaining any traction. I hope the issue gets figured out soon, otherwise I'll have to use my Mbin alt for anything lemmy.world related.

Are you referring to the statis? All of the Dead Space game have that feature, even the first one.

I'm a bit if the opposite, I seem to thrive on games that have a lot of collectibles and side missions/tasks because it turns into mindless fun between emails.
But I get where you're coming from, and I think that one of the game's pitfalls is the collectibles/side missions to main story ratio. Like finding the stickers/graffiti has been the most difficult for me, so I probably could have done without that one. The relics are really cool, and I love reading about them, but they kind of have a weird spread over the map.
I think the devs could have either made the map smaller (not that it's that large to begin with) with less "stuff", since you don't unlock at least half the map anyway if you just stick the main storyline, or they could have padded out or lengthened the main story so you do unlock all the map before you get to the point where you move "off map". (Edit to add) It seems like the devs got so caught up in creating a realistic version of Shibuya that it kinda got away from the main point and plot of the game.

This game gets a lot of (rather justified) flak, but I'll be honest, the first time I played this, it scared the bejeesus out of me. So much so that whenever I would play other games and the lights would start to flicker, my first thought would be "Fuck, the manpigs are coming."

Still working on clearing the map in Ghostwire: Tokyo. There is just so, so much. But even as I'm going through and tying up lose ends, I am loving all the little easter eggs. There's references to previous Tango games, Resident Evil, horror movies, Wizard of Oz of all things... Also, this game has a serious thing for aliens and UFOs? I'm not sure why though. Still fun, even though some tasks have been a little time consuming.