Tom Hatfield played Six Ages, a fantasy clan management sim that's also kind of a text adventure. It's set in Glorantha, the world of games like King of Dragon Pass and the tabletop RPG RuneQuest, and thanks to that there's a lot of setting nuance to its decision-making as you keep your town alive and try to keep those pesky cow-raiders away.
Andy Kelly played The Fisherman: The Fishing Planet, a fishing sim that I'm sure the ad copy has already said has "depth". What it's also got are other players, sharing the same lakes as everybody chills out and reels in catch after catch. I've never played any of the Fishing Planet games, so the idea of basically a fishing MMO sounds wild to me.
Joe Donnelly's latest GTA Online RP adventure involved trying to start a cult. Well, it involved dressing up like one of the Hare Krishna parodies from the first game and asking people if they remembered the Gouranga guys. Shockingly, it did not end well.
James Davenport played Fortnite Chapter 2, and is pretty happy with the changes. For instance, Fortnite has done away with some of the goofier movement options for hurtling through the air while adding a couple of new ways to traverse its bodies of water, which makes for less unpredictability and suits its map better. Sensible! He does note that the building is as opaque as ever, and will continue to baffle players who haven't sat through the requisite hours of YouTube tutorials. Not so sensible!
I've just wrapped up Disco Elysium, finishing it last night. To call it a detective RPG feels like selling it short, as it's also an interior monologue simulator and a novel's worth of excellent writing, but I don't want to overlook the fact that it's a crime story as well and a good one. It's easy enough for a mystery to fall apart with a nonsensical reveal at the end—Murdered: Soul Suspect I'm looking at you—but Disco Elysium does not. Its ending had me glued to the screen, but then that's how I played most of it. It's a masterpiece.
Enough about us. What about you? Been motivated to check out Crusader Kings 2 since it's free? How about the Escher-esque puzzles of Manifold Garden? Or are you deep in Destiny 2: Shadowkeep? Let us know!
