IKR! You do want to recommend the game and talk about it, but you can’t really do so without spoiling it for other people… SkillUp’s review was pretty good in that regard IMO.

I initially started Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered a few days ago, but I wasn’t really in the mood for that game, so I ended up going back to The Witcher 3 to start (and hopefully finish) both DLCs (I’m part way through Heart of Stone atm and have yet to start Blood and Wine).

As for feedback, although weekly might perhaps be too often, maybe a “Show us your collection / show us your setup” kind of thread? This could generate some engagement and lead to interesting discussions imo.

Oh the sudden wave of nostalgia, I had no idea Galactic Battlegrounds received that many mods or fan patches! I’ll have to check those out, cheers for that :)

Well, that’s a good exercise, I’ve actually completed more games in the past year than I thought I did…

• Lunar: Silver Star (Story Complete) - I’m not usually fond of “typical” turn-based RPGs, but there was something about Lunar’s fairly simplistic gameplay, beautiful art and sound design, the quirky translation from Working Designs, it’s just a very “charming” game and it’s been on my mind for a while since then, everything kinda comes together to form a really memorable experience. I’m looking forward to playing Eternal Blue sometime soon-ish.
• Uncharted: Golden Abyss - Okay, hear me out: Golden Abyss is sort of the black sheep in the Uncharted franchise and I wouldn’t say I love it - it can be very frustrating at times, the story is somewhat subpar compared to mainline games and as a showcase for the PS Vita, it can also be pretty gimmicky - however, it was my first Uncharted game, back in 2012, and I had to wait until I got a PS5 (in 2020) to finally experience the other games. It was well worth the wait, I absolutely love the series and that’s why I wanted to replay Golden Abyss (for that bit of nostalgia) last year.
• Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice - I’ve been on a (fairly recent) journey to try and explore my own mental health through various mediums, with video games being one of my primary passions/hobbies/time sinks, I’ve been trying to find games that explore this subject specifically - Hellblade is, of the ones I’ve played yet, the one that does it best. It’s a very intimate game and it can be really sensory heavy at times (I don’t think I would’ve been able to play it, were I in a less than ideal mental state at the time), but it’s such a rewarding experience, being able to see and feel Senua’s tale that way. I can’t wait for the second game.
• A Plague Tale: Requiem - This is the most memorable and emotional experience I’ve ever had in a video game, bar none. I played Innocence and Requiem back to back and I enjoyed it so much, I can’t recommend it enough. I fear my words wouldn’t do the game(s) justice tbh. And that OST is wonderful.
• Nier: Automata - What does it mean to human? I would say this is one of the games which had me reflect on our own condition and society the most, haha. Beyond that, I really enjoyed the gameplay (that’s usually more my kind of RPG - Action focused), with various other interesting mechanics (shmup gameplay, etc). The OST is one of the best I’ve ever heard. One of those games you wish you could erase from your memory and relive all over again.
• GRIS - Another game with a focus on mental health. Simple, beautiful, emotional. No spoken words, yet I felt like I went on a journey at a time when I feel I needed it most, I cried multiple times, but I’m really grateful for what I experienced. Probably the most memorable sound design I’ve experienced last year!

I’ve just finished FF XVI, and while it’s certainly not a perfect game, I really had a fantastic time with it.

Now onto either of Soul Blazer, Parasite Eve or Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered, I’ve yet to decide which to start with.

This one is on IzzyOnDroid and has been working great for me

It’s my only PC, so I’ve used it quite a bit, although not as much as I thought I would?
I got it day one and played it a fair bit last year (about as much as my PS5), but recently I’ve been playing on PS5 (and Series X, to a lesser extent) a lot more. It hasn’t been collecting dust too much, as I’m still using it as a regular old PC, but certainly not daily.

This would depend on the search engines enabled and/or the default language/country set (if any) for that particular instance, you can find those in the settings of the instance itself (and enable/disable whichever you’re most interested in, as well as a few other relevant settings).

Yep, I remember doing it at least a couple years in a row in elementary school (I might have been 9 or 10?) - this was in France, in the early 00s.

Exactly, I’ve noticed this over the past few months, actual relevant results are being pushed much further down the stack.

If you want to explore alternatives, I’ve been using SearXNG, a so-called “metasearch engine”, where you can get a combination of various search engine results, based on your preferences. It’s pretty good, when it works (it tends to get rate-limited fairly often… or at least some of its results / search engines do, which can get annoying).

Well, Spotify Duo is going up by $2, so that’s not exactly it.

There’s tons of indie games everywhere nowadays, PS5 included, and some of them even launch(ed) day one on PS Plus Extra (Stray, Tchia, to name a few). There’s a great digital selection (you might as well check it out now, since it’s the PSN Summer Sale), and if you’d rather own (physical), then LRG and other limited print companies have been releasing a number of those indie games on PS4/PS5.

If you’d rather play on a smaller screen then you might be better off with a Switch or a Steam Deck (and you might even get a few more indie games on the latter, but that’s debatable), otherwise I don’t really see any reason to trade in your PS5 - but to each their own!

I’m part of the club! Although tbf I haven’t touched it much since getting it about a year ago (I just haven’t played that much retro stuff these days or most of it has been with my Super Nt).
One great addition I got recently was a 3D printed grip case, it made long play sessions sooo much more comfortable (obligatory “not affiliated” and I’m not the one making these, but I really like the quality which is why I’m linking it here).

As far as what I’ve been playing on it recently… really just pick up and play, SoR 2 or Turtles in Time, but I completed Metroid Fusion (first time) a few months ago on the Pocket (that’s what made me get a grip case, it really wasn’t too great wrt shoulder buttons comfort).

Obvious “this is what works for me and why I do it” disclaimer, but:

• I have a growing collection of games which spans multiple consoles and physical/digital media alike, so I need a way to track what games I have and where, so as to not buy them multiple times (I don’t believe this to be a typical use case, but I could be wrong?).
• Aside from that practical element, I have a few lists on HLTB where I track what I (might) want to play next, but realistically it’s pretty much always a case of checking out what I have and picking one based on my mood / gut feeling / whatever.
• Lastly, it’s about actually finishing games - getting started with some form of tracking helped me tremendously get past the “pick up and drop after a few hours” mentality (?). I wouldn’t have gotten to experience some of the best games I’ve played in recent memories, were it not for my backlog, because I probably would have forgotten I had them / wouldn’t have stuck with them.

Cheers for that. I’ve cut the cord from Google Photos without a solid replacement and it’s been… pretty miserable tbh.
I’ll look into setting up a Synology NAS, as it seems to be a relatively inexpensive solution moving forward (Proton is nowhere near what I’m looking for feature-wise and other self-hosted foss solutions aren’t really there yet afaict).

For most games, I’m like you - It’s been a gradual shift for me, as I used to play very sandboxy type games before (although I could never get into Minecraft), but have been heavily focused on story-heavy / experience-based games for the last 3+ years.
I will say that I really liked BotW though, and am looking forward to playing TotK eventually (in the next 2/3 years or so) and Starfield has got me really intrigued, so we’ll see.

Then there’s the “intrinsic me”, I guess, I don’t mind playing some games for the sake of it, with no goals in mind - Forza Horizon just going from one end of the map to the other, or the same loop of various arcade games whenever I don’t feel like doing anything else - sure there’s some sort of objective, but ultimately when you’ve seen and done it that many times, it’s not far off from it not being there at all imo, and I still enjoy it just as much.

Ah, that’s pretty shitty if true, do you have any examples?
I’ve been using more of their apps recently, so I’d like to avoid being in that situation in the future :/

Story-heavy: Uncharted series (between 10 and 16 hours per game), Hellblade (around 8 hours) and - if you can spare another 10 hours or so and Action RPGs are your thing - Nier Automata is really worth it (around 30 hours).
Gris was impactful enough for me that I’ll mention it here, since it was super short (4 hours at most).

Agreed, a week is not nearly enough for a lot of games, which is why I really wanted to interface with HLTB.
If you want an excuse to get to Coquitlam, North Van or New West, for instance, you’ll see how most Lower Mainland libraries have longer borrowing times (usually 2 to 3 weeks) and pretty great selections too.

I don’t know that it really qualifies as a VN (because there’s some RTS - and I guess Adventure - aspects to it), but 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim