Alright. April is firmly in the books. I spent the majority of the month playing Gray Zone Warfare, Blue Prince, and Megabonk. And I’d say those were also the highlights for me. Although…I did just start Dispatch the other day, and that game is perfect for someone with my sense of humor. It’s special. I never did get around to playing anything I predicted I’d be playing in April, lol.
April Completions
Gray Zone Warfare
48.5 hours, no achievements
There really isn't an endgame yet. Just endless questing and gearing up. It's a ton of fun, but not without issues. Given as how it won't likely see full release for a couple years still, I feel good in saying this is completed pending the next major update. Well worth playing even now.
Blue Prince
23.1 hours, 1 of 16 achievements
Not a cheevo hunter's type of game, lol. Also, it's just about the best roguelike puzzle game in existence. Possibly THE best one. Definitely worth playing. Arguably shouldn't be slept on.
BRAINBUGS: The Game
0.2 hours, no achievements
It's barely a game. More like an interesting hybrid of RPG Maker meets FMV. And a prelude for a movie allegedly. It's cool for what it is. And what it is...is free and only about ten minutes long.
Treeplanter
0.6 hours, no achievements
This isn't a game. It's a digital playscape where you create cool natural (mostly) settings with human interaction evident. Or not. Pretty chill, and the program's charitable mission statement makes it a must own.
Turquoise
0.4 hours, 11 of 18 achievements
Also a digital playscape. Not nearly as good as Treeplanter, but it's decent still. This one is set underwater where you create your own reefs.
Broken Aperture
0.9 hours, 6 of 12 achievements
Broken Aperture is, well, kinda broken. It is a functional and cool bit of walking sim. But it's also quite buggy. And its pricing is pretty ambitious given it's incredibly short run time. Still, there is a worthwhile experience underneath all that. At a steep discount. And if the bugs are addressed.
April Retirements
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Megabonk. Actually, this is a fantastic 3-D Survivors game. But it struggles with how the RNG works and a distinct lack of biomes. Which caused me to get bored around hour twenty. Still, I’ll reiterate. This is a fantastic game, nonetheless. Unquestionably one of the best Survivors games out there. Despite the issues I mentioned.
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The High Tower. An interesting megastructure climbing game marred by unacceptable bugs and a single slot autosave system.
Plans for May
I’m going to wrap up Dispatch over the weekend and then I’ll finally start Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon. In fact, I just bought the DLC for it a couple days ago. And I’d say that’s all the for sure I’ve got in May. I do entertain the idea of playing Triangle Strategy as well, plus some smaller games. Will that happen? Maybe. :)
Lol i bugged at start with these 3 half-life 2 illustrations, i thought hmm he finished HL2 3x this month.
I see you have devoured Gray Zone ! Did you play it solo or coop ? You got a free key or were already a Ghost Recon fan ? I just started solo-ing Gray Zone and it’s a dream to get back this Ghost Recon-like ambiance.
Omg Blue Prince is the sort of games that gives you generously 1 achievement when you finish it ? XD
Still a huge congratz for Gray zone and Blue Prince !
I bought Gray Zone and actually all the upgrades. Although I played it solo, I’ll probably start over with a new character so my friends and I can all join the same PMC and play together. Unless the devs decide to change it to where you can have more than one active character.
I actually didn’t buy it due to any Ghost Recon similarities although I do enjoy Ghost Recon. I’d just seen enough of the newest update via following the game’s development to tell me that it was time to give it a try. Not sure exactly when I first saw the game though.
One thing I forgot to do was to test was the boundary of the fallout zone while I was playing. I meant to dump all my gear in a locker and check it out, but it’ll have to be something I try out in the future. :)
Yeah, that BLAEO script doesn’t recognize the thumbnails for profile limited games apparently, lol. They’re Half-Life 2 as the default thumbnail.
That’s obvious you’ll find good fun replaying it with friends. I don’t even know what is the fallout zone yet ! Will remember about that !
Out of curiosity, did you play the other ones ? Incursion red river, Operator, Ready or not, Swat Commander, Arma 3, others ?
I do own Swat Commander and Arma 3, but I really haven’t played much of them yet. What do you think of Swat Commander so far?
Incursion Red River, Operator, and Ready or Not I’m very interested in (I’ll probably buy those during the Summer sale), and I would like to take a look at Arma Reforged as well. Also of interest is the Steam release of Tarkov, Bodycam, the new Hell Let Loose that’ll be releasing soon enough, and Ground Branch.
When you look at your map in Gray Zone, check out that area in the center. The actual story is going to focus on that. It’s suggested that there might be a bit of an alien invasion or zombie theme attached to whatever is going on in there. At the moment, the bits of story in some of the quests that relate to that zone all talk about people changing, acting weird, and so on. And they also are heavily irradiated if they manage to come back from that area. You need to take potassium pills with you when you accept quests to investigate some of the people who were known to have entered that zone, or you’ll end up irradiated and sick during those missions.
Ah duck i was hoping for a strictly realistic game (without zombies or aliens or this sort of things), but i’ll still check the area thanks for the tip !
I finished Ready or not (solo with AI teammates, normal difficulty). The UI is an additional opponent in this game when you play solo and (enemy, not teammates) AI is well known to be on steroids. Clearly a game designed to be played co-op. The atmosphere is harsh and fascinating, deeper than it appears at 1st sight. It’s optimized like shit since the game was upgraded to UE5, now playable but wasn’t for long months. Level design is a maze, it’s a bad point because i believe that good level design should provide landmarks (i like a lot Kingdom Come 1 or Dishonored 2 level-design, or Diablo 2 in another genre).
Swat Commander is often compared to Ready or Not. Swat Commander is still early-access. AI is clearly less clever and doesn’t have an aimhack. It makes the game a lot easier less of a challenge, but also more enjoyable when playing solo. Interface isn’t exactly Swat-like but much more similar. But the ambiance is really Swat 4-like. Level design is also partly a maze. You can now also play this one with your friends.
In the end i think Ready or not is 100% a masterpiece, devs have a vision and couldn’t care less about player feedback… and why not ? It’s their creation, after all. Swat Commander demo was awful but is now a well playable game, it’s almost exactly like playing Swat 4 but with modern graphics.
Incursion red river and Ground Branch are both in my backlog, not yet started. I’m playing Operator actually, except 1 mission it’s almost not possible to finish it single player, AI is omniscient and super nervous. On the other hand, it’s customization party, and i really love the feel and sound of the weapons, and the very retrained UI almost invisible.
ArmA reforged didn’t buy it because it’s fully multiplayer oriented. Tarkov is a reference but very badly reviewed on steam, don’t know why. Bodycam has an interesting concept but players say it quickly falls short.