noboners

1. Quake 2

2. Venba

Here's a list of new nominees:

Solar Ash (5 hour main story) - Adventure platforming game by the people who developed Hyper Light Drifter.

Gris (3 hour main story) - Relaxing platform puzzler which won a few awards when it released in 2019.

Quake 2 (7 hour main story) - It's Quake 2, but new again!

Venba (1 hour main story) - Narrative cooking game about an Indian family who immigrates to Canada in the 80s.

A Short Hike (1 hour main story) - Adventure exploration game about hiking up a mountain.

Broforce (7 hour main story) - Side-scrolling Run-and-Gun platformer. Recently got an update, I think.

Serious Sam: Siberian Mayhem (4 hour main story) - First person shooter that loves to send lots of enemies at you at once.

When I was moving last, I did what others suggested and searched for the available Fiber options and then posted on those cities subreddits to see how people's internet has been using that carrier. Unfortunately, I'm not aware of a singular site/place that's built to help determine what Internet provider to use. Especially in another country. So posting within the relevant subreddit might be your best bet. Not sure how helpful people are in something like r/England though.

In typical fashion I haven't finished it yet, but I do plan to. I know it is a short game, but the repetitive puzzles have prevented me from being able to sit down with the game for long periods of time. I do think the presentation of the game is beautiful, but having played a lot of these types of games, this one just doesn't do much to set itself apart outside of the art style.

It took me an embarrassing amount of time to solve two of the puzzles so far though, but I think it was mostly of my own accord. One was the a wind chime puzzle where you had to line up objects on the pipes to make it match clues found around the environment. I found two of the clues immediately but spent a 5-10 minutes looking around for the other two before I eventually just gave up and brute forced the puzzle. I'm still not sure where the other two clues were.

The other was one of the stealth puzzles where I just didn't realize that so long as you were hidden in the grass, the enemy could run past you without harming you. I think I just forgot about that between playthroughs though.

Overall, I think it has been an OK experience, but I already wonder if it is something that was just kept being made longer for the sake of being longer, if that makes sense. Although I am now especially curious to see this final boss.

I agree that part of it is probably due to the ability to filter games by console on the ps5 storefront. Whenever I enter the PS5 shop, I immediately check the box to only show me ps5 games because I have owned a ps4 basically since launch and have bought all the games I wanted to during that consoles main lifecycle. I don't really want the "On Sale" list to be bloated with that gen's games, but by doing so, I was obviously missing some of the newer games that didn't bother with a separate ps5 version.

1. The Big Con

2. Amnesia: the bunker

@junkerman: I want to spend more time in the ship builder but I think I'm too early to be able to afford what I need in it.

But I tried to just add some cargo space to the starter ship and it was kinda daunting on controller to take apart and try and find somewhere for the cargo to attach. Are you building ships from scratch on the builder or buying ships & editing them?

1. The Big Con

2. Planet of Lana

@retris:I think you are right in what Quick Looks provide, but I don't think they were providing the summation they used to. The Viewfinder, BG3 & Pikmin 4 and most of the other QLs from the last month have absolutely all been great and reminded me of the older quick looks. But so many of the quick looks from the pandemic era were just the opening hour or two of a game, which I don't think provides a good snapshot of what the game really is.

So, I suppose I didn't mean to come across dismissive of QLs as a whole, I was just trying to say I am much happier with this slow drip of new QLs where the crew is actually liking the game and putting out Quick Looks for games they think deserve them. Not just churning some out because it felt like something they needed to do for SEO reasons.

I'm honestly a big fan of the state of the site right now, and I think it is the strongest it has been since the pandemic started. Not having Jess/Jason sucks something fierce, but the content that is being put out is really fun and I think the constant rotating chair that seems to be going on is really reminiscent of early Whiskey days where you just kinda don't know who is going to show up where. But the Summer Games Fest couches were some of the best content they have done in years, and I think the whole group just has really gelled at this point and can riff off each other easily. You can really tell how much enjoyment the gang is getting right now, which is something that I think was missing just a few years ago. All the travelogues have been good fun, too.

I think the biggest thing missing right now are Quick Looks, but I also think we have just kind of moved passed the point of them. At any point of the day, if you want to see gameplay of a game, you can open Twitch and do so. Sure it's not GB playing them, but I would rather watch GB play games they enjoy than watch them go through the motions of a tutorial in a game they hate.

edit: I should mention that I am not watching everything. But I never have.