What games besides TSW are you obsessing about currently? I have just finished my third playthrough of Elden Ring, now on my fourth, this time I am trying magic, which is a big step out of my soulslike comfort zone Also, finally yielded and got Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon... kinda like an unholy union between Skyrim and soulslikes... playing on medium diff, and it is pretty hard at times, tho finally I am getting some decent gear, so I get an occasional power trip or two Additionally, I cant recommend Boxes: Lost Fragments enough, if you want something chill... not too easy, but not too hard either, just right for relaxing and satisfying puzzle solving experience... wish there was more tho
Where to start… Back in the day, Lemmings 2. F16 Combat Pilot on the Amiga. Ditto Gunship 2000. The various Wing Commander games and Privateer. Frontier Elite 2. US Navy Fighters. Longbow 2. Well basically any combat flight sim with a decent dynamic campaign, though funnily enough never really engaged with Falcon 4. Transport Tycoon and the various Railroad Tycoons. Various iterations of MSFS but IMHO peaked with FS2004/FS9. X3 Terran Conflict. Actually ground out The Xenon Hub twice on that one! Elite Dangerous - did the grind up to Beagle Point twice though haven’t touched it in ages. Mass Effect Trilogy. Deus X HR. Probably many more but that’s enough to be going on with.
I am still praying for a proper Freelancer remake... that one let me experience the glorious space battles like in SW or Star Trek without having to have flight sim experience as for trains, tried Trainz waaaay back, then TS... but properly got into trains stuff with TSW... at first without safety stuff, but that got boring real quick... once I started learning safety stuff and signalling, it has become super engaging and I have stayed ever since
For me apart from train games it was always been some form of Car racing game and Lego Games. It became an annual tradition between myself and my former boss that we would gift each other the latest Lego game on the Wii for Christmas and see who could 100% complete it first (Him usually as he would play cooperative mode with his wife). In Terms of Car games, it was usually Gran Turismo. I have them all including the Prologues. But more recently it's been Forza Horizon. I got 4 fairly late and really enjoyed it. Then got 5 the day it came out and have played it regularly since - I'm only missing 3 cars and they were from weekly challenges where I was sick. Really looking forward to 6 with it being based in Japan. For trains, I started with Microsoft but quite casually. Then I got Trainz but didn't really enjoy it. Then finally picked up Railworks 3. I really started expanding my collection around TS2016 I think and hate to think how much I've spent on it! TSW is still just an enjoyable sideshow for me. It can't compete with the distances and variety of stock, but I've still got a couple of hundred hours played.
for me the deciding factors for TSW have always been timetable mode and general UI... like lets say you havent played the game for quite a while and forgot where controls in the cab are - in TS it takes forever for the labels of stuff to pop up, and you dont have walkable cab, so it takes ages to figure out where stuff is also the learning curve in TSW is more favorable now that we got the first Czech route in the game, hopefully it gains traction and we get more Czech and Slovak content, so I can drive some stock I can actually see around where I live and work... and hopefully we get more Austrian stuff in the future, I am hoping for something Vienna-centred
I suddenly realised we are actually discussing contemporary games rather than retro… my bad. So my current go to’s apart from TSW are: SimRail. Farming Simulator 25. The Saxlingham map remains addictive and the forthcoming Witcombe Park from OxygenDavid looks to be fantastic. ETS2 though not for a few weeks as it tends to get a bit samey. Maybe a lone voice but after all the hype, I wasn’t overly impressed with Nordic Horizons. Particularly in the far north it didn’t really capture the rugged feel - more like Montana - and due to politics left out the area of Karelia, Murmansk etc. that was in ProMods.. Snowrunner is another one I revisit from time to time. Problem is, so much content now it could take years of playing exclusively to finish them all to 100%. Some of the later maps are just designed to be stupid hard rather than interesting or challenging and of course most don’t really look like the areas they portray. An outsider I recently reinstalled was the remastered original Commsnd and Conquer. But it has been kicking my rear by Mission 4 or 5 on both the GDI and NOD campaigns so think I lost my touch! Train sim wise, TSC remains uninstalled as does Railroader. Run 8, I fire up occasionally but not in recent weeks.
I like both retro and new games, I just wanted to focus on what we play the most atm ... like I do play a lot TSW, obviously, cos the remasters and new Czech route, but I also do a lot of Elden Ring and Tainted Grail - that one has pretty neat combat, which I can appreciate as master of bonk ... those big hammers and swords sure do have an impact muahaha
And everything was made using the same set of assets. There's no mention of any resemblance to reality.
Up until a year or so ago, I did a huge amount of Fallout 4, trying for the various faction endings but then I just suddenly stopped. It tended to be a bit of a grind, particularly at the beginning when trying to decide what skills etc. to level up. Plus those wretched radiant missions for Preston Garvey, “Another settlement needs your help.”
my fourth playthrough of Elden Ring is like yeah I know whats ahead of me, but since I now use magic, I know I need to approach stuff in a much different way... so far it is fun
Red Dead Redemption 2. I just love fishing and hunting setting up camp for the night and enjoying the unbelievable beauty the world has to offer. At times I wish Beechers Hope was my real home. I’ve grown up with Mortal Kombat and this is where I got my username from “Mortal1234”. The best fighting game out there for sure. Or atleast it was… lately MK has been declining in quality sadly… I miss the 3D Era back in the PS2 days. I never did get to play MK - Shaolin Monks. I enjoy Minecraft for creating worlds. Quite therapeutic. ETS2 will soon be on the list when it decides to come to consoles. Another game that looks chill as hell.
I enjoyed the story modes of MK 9-11, and yes, 1 was a decline in quality, the story was too rushed... cant say more cos I didnt play em much I loved the new movie tho, and looking forward to the second one, with Noob Saibot, Shao Kahn, Johnny Cage and others
MK9 was amazing. It was so good. The roster. The music. The stages were so well designed and then you had that 300 Challenge tower. I broke my tv over that regretfully haha !! I got a bit too mad. Oops. Then they started to change it up after 9 and it started going a bit downhill I felt. X wasn’t too bad. It was decent but then 11 and 1 weren’t that great… The movie is looking really good. I’m looking forward to seeing it. Looks like they’ve went all out with the second one from what I’ve seen. Now that Paramount has bought WB Games it will be interesting to see what they do with MK moving forwards. It was either Paramount or Netflix. I just hope they take MK back to its roots.
my fav scene was, of course, the final "boss" fight when Scorpion's "spear" pierced Sub-Zero's hand, MK theme started playing, and the famous "GET OVER HERE!!!" happened, so epic ... the actor sold the character so well
Games on a similar level to how I got hooked on TSW would definitely have to be Skyrim, Fallout 4 and Fallout New Vegas (3 close but I would have to say not as high) fallout 4 I’ve had many many restarts over the years (same with Skyrim) I remember one save alone was about 30 days total of playtime. cities skylines probably coming up to that point aswell maybe but the game I’ve played the most would probably be Minecraft about 11 years ago I played that game over a period of about 6 years many times almost non stop for about 8 hours a day sometimes. A recent game what will likely join this list is Anno 117 it released in November and I’m over 200 hours of playtime on a single save.
Apart from the TSW series, I only have similar hours of gameplay in Euro Truck Simulator 2 and American Truck Simulator, as well as the Farming Simulator series, although admittedly, I haven't played Farming Simulator all that much recently. Aside from that, I usually play World of Warships every day. And although I play a variety of colony sims and automation games, the only one I find myself frequently returning to is Satisfactory. Not that I'm good at any of these games, you can usually find me playing the lower difficulties enjoying the game in a casual stress-free way.
I just finished up Robocop Rogue City, which was surprisingly good (that first fight with ED-209 can go pound sand, though!) I picked up Subway Sim recently, and apart from its little quirks is pretty fun. I've got the new Forza: Horizon on pre-order, and just wrapped up all my tasks on the previous title. Lately I've been in a bit of an RTS mood, and have been playing C&C Generals, Rimworld, and just started a new conquest campaign in Empire at War's Awakening of the Clone Wars mod. The Star Trek Armada mod for Sins of a Solar Empire is great as well (especially playing as the Borg).
