I wish that microsoft would allow the OG xbox and the 360 to have their live servers online again so people could play the games online again. I think it would be fun.

I played the Gears Eday beta until I hit level 20 and got all the skins , ready for the retail release. Its a really good game but there are some gripes. no more sticky grenades, and there seemed to be lag to the point of pulling the trigger there was a slight delay between that and the gun firing. but its just the beta. The Seige map was very fun and i love that it isnt a flat map there are lots of levels to it. THe versus mode was very similar to the previous 2 games.

Beat Deus Ex PS2 again but this time without augmentations and skill upgrades on realistic difficulty.

ow

Won Castles II one more time.
Not even trying as I finished a new build and even didn't realize it was at max difficulty.

I conquered the Pope's territories, he had to make me King 😀

Nexxen wrote on 2026-08-25, 17:23:

Won Castles II one more time.

Oh boy! Maybe I should play "Crush the Castle" again! You know, that browser game that influenced all the Angry Birds / Bunny Shooter games.

Installed eye beholder 1,2 & 3 as all seeing eye can be side loaded. Made a party using ai to tell me what to roll and what class to choose. Started it and thought, what the f am I doing? This is a waste of time and closed it 😒
Jumped back to xmen Vs street fighter on final burn neo, quick game out of the way

dr_st wrote on 2026-08-25, 19:27:

Nexxen wrote on 2026-08-25, 17:23:

Won Castles II one more time.

Oh boy! Maybe I should play "Crush the Castle" again! You know, that browser game that influenced all the Angry Birds / Bunny Shooter games.

It's this one I played. And I am now replaying to see if I can speedrun it...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castles_II%3A_S … ge_and_Conquest

I checked out the game, it'd drive me mad... but I tried it anyway 🤣 and failed, mostly...

Nexxen wrote on 2026-08-25, 20:31:

It's this one I played. And I am now replaying to see if I can speedrun it...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castles_II%3A_S … ge_and_Conquest

I checked out the game, it'd drive me mad... but I tried it anyway 🤣 and failed, mostly...

Well, there are TAS Speedruns of the original Civilization, so, I guess, everything is possible.

dr_st wrote on 2026-08-26, 05:08:

Nexxen wrote on 2026-08-25, 20:31:

It's this one I played. And I am now replaying to see if I can speedrun it...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castles_II%3A_S … ge_and_Conquest

I checked out the game, it'd drive me mad... but I tried it anyway 🤣 and failed, mostly...

Well, there are TAS Speedruns of the original Civilization, so, I guess, everything is possible.

There's luck involved.
I went back to your game, took me 2 hours to understand it don't like it - 🤣

I miss simpler games.......

I'm playing Serious Sam 2 now... I decided to go through all SS games from first encounter to SS4 😀

Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered

Started playing this over the weekend. I'm using the Steam version with the DualSense connected over USB. It works great, and all of the controller's advanced features are fully supported, though you do have to disable Steam Input first. I'm impressed with how well the haptics are utilized in this game. It's a far cry from the rumble used on previous gen consoles. You can feel the subtlest of vibrations at times, like when searching for Black Cat's hidden items. And of course, things ramp up during action heavy scenes, such as when Spider-Man is trailing a helicopter. Adaptive triggers also feel great to use while jumping around and getting enemies tangled up in webs. Really good implementation here.

The gameplay is mostly ok, but sidequests suffer from the boring open world design, and usually amount to "find x things" busywork. As I'm not a fan of this, I ignored most of the optional stuff and just focused on the main plot. I did complete all the Black Cat missions though, as I... uh, appreciated her charms during my early teens, when I was watching the '90s Spider-Man cartoon. 😁

Anyway, I'm maybe one quarter into the main plot, and it's been fine so far. The story is decent enough, the voice acting and music are great, and the graphics are still gorgeous, despite this being originally released in 2018. I have to say, the controls took me a while to get used to, but once I did, web-slinging around the city became super enjoyable. The devs really nailed that aspect, and you kinda feel like the Spider-Man from the cartoon series while performing all those acrobatics. It's really fun.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2026-08-31, 07:30:

Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered […]
Show full quote

Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered

Started playing this over the weekend. I'm using the Steam version with the DualSense connected over USB. It works great, and all of the controller's advanced features are fully supported, though you do have to disable Steam Input first. I'm impressed with how well the haptics are utilized in this game. It's a far cry from the rumble used on previous gen consoles. You can feel the subtlest of vibrations at times, like when searching for Black Cat's hidden items. And of course, things ramp up during action heavy scenes, such as when Spider-Man is trailing a helicopter. Adaptive triggers also feel great to use while jumping around and getting enemies tangled up in webs. Really good implementation here.

The gameplay is mostly ok, but sidequests suffer from the boring open world design, and usually amount to "find x things" busywork. As I'm not a fan of this, I ignored most of the optional stuff and just focused on the main plot. I did complete all the Black Cat missions though, as I... uh, appreciated her charms during my early teens, when I was watching the '90s Spider-Man cartoon. 😁

Anyway, I'm maybe one quarter into the main plot, and it's been fine so far. The story is decent enough, the voice acting and music are great, and the graphics are still gorgeous, despite this being originally released in 2018. I have to say, the controls took me a while to get used to, but once I did, web-slinging around the city became super enjoyable. The devs really nailed that aspect, and you kinda feel like the Spider-Man from the cartoon series while performing all those acrobatics. It's really fun.

nice, I have this on PS4 pro on disc, definitely on my to play radar. played a little bit earlier this year but had to uninstall it as i've only managed to cram in a 500gb SSD (ram and ssd prices are crazy). Yakuza 0 and a few other games have hogged the SSD space, which I still need to pick back up.

Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered

Finished! The game was short, but pretty good. Though it did get a bit repetitive near the end, when the devs make you fight hordes of generic enemies over and over again. The Sinister Six boss battles were cool though, and had that flashy comic book feel to them. The main plot also concluded in a satisfying manner, and the writing remained strong all the way through.

One of the few things that I disliked were the stealth missions, where you play as either Mary Jane or Miles. I wouldn't have minded these had they been optional, but sadly, they were on the critical path and thus unavoidable. Also, their placement in the story often disrupted the pacing. Some of the chase sequences were a bit irritating as well, especially the one from the DLC where you're trailing Black Cat through the subway.

Anyway, I completed the main game and the first DLC. Didn't bother with the other two, as the combat got a bit too repetitive for my taste. Overall, this was a fun game, despite the aforementioned issues. As noted before, it makes excellent use of the DualSense controller, so if you have one of those, be sure to try it here.

GTA V

i have played before but never really started to do missions. I am in early, just a few franklin missions and playing it "properly" brings the game to life, there is so much to do - really building on the variety GTA IV offered

The map is huge, but while there is more detail there are some things that seem less than in IV - in that game i could often climb fire escapes or enter buildings and climb the staircase and look around, just seemed more "real" at that scale, and i prefer the city style in IV. I found a burger shot in GTA V and there was no entrance! I get that V is a different style though, for instance more cars seem to be top end models, it reflects it location. Driving is ok but a bit arcade like after IV. Overall, looks promising and that i haven't played it properly for so long is, retrospectively, a surprise! I spent ages in 3, VC, SA, IV so should have immediately taken to V

I doubt i'll play 6 any time soon though, maybe i wont even buy it. what i've seen so far appears to be V but a bit more graphics and stuff, and the dialog i have heard is no where near as sharp as previous versions - but that might be editing for marketing

ELEX

I bought this on a GOG sale some time ago, and finally got around to playing it. Because this is a Piranha Bytes game, I've set the language to German, as I prefer to experience the writing and humor in their original form. So far, it pretty much feels like Gothic in a post-apocalyptic setting, which is great.

Being a reasonably modern game, ELEX supports my Xbox controller, and is therefore very suitable for couch gaming. It is a bit clunky that they assigned Sneak and Run to the same button, and which one activates depends on whether you're moving or not. But otherwise, it plays well on a controller. Interestingly, the default control scheme is set up like in Dark Souls, though the combat here isn't quite on that level. It's certainly hard, just not as polished as the Souls series, but then again few things are.

Anyway, the atmosphere is very reminiscent of Gothic. Especially because the closest settlement to your starting location is "technologically impaired" so it almost feels like you're back in the medieval fantasy setting of those games. The quests are decent, but a lot of them seem to be interconnected, so solving one often requires tackling two or three others beforehand. As is the norm for PB games, ELEX doesn't hold your hand and lets you figure stuff out on your own, which I like a lot.

I will say that the area design is slightly less appealing to me compared to Gothic. The world of ELEX has a lot of verticality, and your character even starts off with a jetpack, but this makes settlements a bit less intuitive to navigate. There's also some traditional "eurojank" with the gameplay, so NPC will sometimes not be at their regular locations (despite the quest radar showing them there), certain areas have spots with bad collision detection, and I've experienced a few sporadic crashes as well.

Despite all that, ELEX grabbed me almost immediately after I started playing. It definitively feels like a spiritual successor to the Gothic/Risen series. As usual with these games, I'm playing it completely blind, and it's been really fun so far.

Final Fantasy Resonance (Demo)

I had my eye on this game for a while, and today I downloaded the demo from its Steam store page. Looks great so far, very reminiscent of the classic turn-based Final Fantasy games from the SNES era. The length of this demo surprised me, as I'm almost three hours in and there's still more stuff to do. Hopefully, the saves can be transferred over to the full game when it comes out next month.

gerry wrote on 2026-09-04, 09:26:

GTA V

...

I doubt i'll play 6 any time soon though, maybe i wont even buy it. what i've seen so far appears to be V but a bit more graphics and stuff, and the dialog i have heard is no where near as sharp as previous versions - but that might be editing for marketing

I like the idea of the setting in VI, though it probably won't be as easy to navigate. Vice City in GTA: VC felt so at home to me, don't know how to put it.

My brother will likely buy it for his PS5. I don't like the idea of borrowing the console, plus playing these things with a controller, it feels rather disconnected to me.

So then there's the question when (if?) it comes to PC, have to get a better PC, set it up and finally, I hear shady things about the company behind the game. There will likely be other ways to get the game, but still. Is one still part of the problem then? Maybe a different problem, I don't know.

I fired up Freelancer today... It's amazing how it still look good today, and the narrative is just as engaging.

Shader_BiH wrote on 2026-09-05, 15:48:

I fired up Freelancer today... It's amazing how it still look good today, and the narrative is just as engaging.

freelancer, i played starlancer alot more but microsoft wont rerelease them anytime soon

twiz11 wrote on 2026-09-05, 21:25:

Shader_BiH wrote on 2026-09-05, 15:48:

I fired up Freelancer today... It's amazing how it still look good today, and the narrative is just as engaging.

freelancer, i played starlancer alot more but microsoft wont rerelease them anytime soon

Yeah, if I'm not mistaking that was a kind of spiritual prequel to Freelancer. I think I will give it a shot soon.

Considering Microsoft... they probably won't rerelease these games ever. They consumed digital anvil studios, as well as numerous others, and after game releases they disbanded them. So many studios were destroyed by Microsoft games and It is very difficult for me not to hate them very very... very much.