Space Marine II.

I was avoiding buying it for ethical reasons (dev team in Russia, company sending money there skirting the sanctions, etc.) Well, now it appeared on Game Pass, so I figured that since not a single red cent of mine will go to them, may as well take a look.

It's kinda not great actually. Average at best and has some aspects that push it towards the below-average territory. Not sure I have it in me to finish it, but we'll see. For what it's worth I'm glad I didn't buy it. Sanctions or not, the game itself doesn't appear to have much merit. :(

Crysis Warhead, for a few hours of diversion. I hope La Quimera will be coming to GOG later this year, as it's the spiritual successor to the Crysis series but with that cheeky vibe Far Cry used to be known for.

Anyone unaware of La Quimera can check the screens and vids of it at Steam and YouTube. It's already in the GOG Dreamlist ready for more voting.

Slowly playing through Final Fantasy 8. (Just reached the point where it's time to take a train ride.)

Some early thoughts:
* The game gives you world map access right away. This is a welcome change, especially since FF7 takes so long before you get access to it.
* It seems that the -ra tier of spells doesn't have much useful lifetime in this game. I already have Wizard Stones that can be refined into -ga tier spells (plus Tents becoming Curagas), and apparently the next town has a shop that sells items that can be refined for more Wizard Stones. (This reminds me of FF4, where right when you're just getting a first taste of -ra tier spells (albeit outclassed by Twincast in the 3D Remake), the game just gives one of your characters the -ga tier spells, and after he leaves, the next black magic user has summons that are better than -ra tier.)
* Not playing Triple Triad seems to be enough of a restriction to keep the game's balance from being utterly torn apart too early in the game.

I'm over a month in Arcanum, lvl 48, and still many places to go. I like the main story and most of the side quests, but not the gameplay. Not that it's a bad game, no. But I strongly believe the game doesn't deserve the #3 place in the crpg book. Certainly not.

Got addicted to Battle Brothers

very good mix between the tactical fun of good old xcom and a grim medieval atmosphere.

Took some times reading some guides to figure out how the systems are working, but once you manage to get things done your mercenaries start to die a lot less and you can finally get them growing stronger and better equipped (more than often from loot) for the new challenges that come.

And finally because your mercs are better and rarely die ( as the randomness hurt you a lot less when your troops have better stats/perks/armor/weapon everything) you get to stabilize your finances (as early game it's often lost in buying supplies/maintenance/mercs healing) and finally make a lot of profit from the contracts.

It's tempting to use shield on everyone (it's a must to keep low level mercs alive, and early game you want nearly everyone with shield and spear)
But using a weapon with only 1 hand hurt the damage dealing (gripping a weapon with 2 hands, even a 1 handed weapon, allow +25% damage) , this makes a very noticable difference once you face armored enemies (because hurting and killing opponents faster mean that they will then have less turns to strike your own troops)

And do not overlook polearms , your troops behind your front liners can deal absolute hurt on the enemies with the polearms extra 1 tile range , but same for the AI using polearms those are true bastards :D

Returned to Deus Ex Mankind Divided.

Final Fantasy III since I never played original I-IV, after that probably Final Fantasy IV.

I've been playing through Silksong slowly since the beginning of the year.

Currently at the Last Judge who I am working on learning the patterns and creeping ever closer to victory over but I've taken a break to explore a bit more and look for upgrades. I have some mixed feelings on the game as much like with the original I love the music, atmosphere and sense of exploration but on the other hand it is pretty difficult at times. I think I am getting stuck slightly more often than in the original and while I don't mind getting stuck for a bit while learning a fight or section when it lasts for too long it becomes a bit tiring when I just want to progress on and see what else the game has in store.

Playing Synergy again because I haven't finished it yet.

Been playing several Quake games lately myself!
Just downloaded this and looking forward to playing it for the first time.
Zandronum

Quake II and III: Arena multiplayer.

Started playing Blood: Refreshed Supply for the first time. Love the horror movie references.

Epic Pinball, which I was happy to find on GOG. I got a diskette of it from Blockbuster Video in the 90's but coupldnt remember the name but finally found it!

Duke Nukem 3D: Atomic

Right now I'm mostly into classic FPS games I loved or missed out on back in the day.

That's a great list of games you have there. I would really recommend checking out the original Shadow Warrior.

Heh, I get all that! I began with original Doom and that set my personal game genre to FPS. Quake II Arena, man, I spent hundreds -- probably thousands -- of hours on the online version called Quake Live. Far Cry, hence my avatar. More recently, Warhammer 40,000 Necromunda Hired Gun. Crysis. STALKER. Even Skyrim and Oblivion. Be sure to play all of them. Nothing beats the immersion of first-person. It's like VR but without the fussy hardware.

I played through the shareware version years ago and just started playing the full version on Steam. Seems fun so far!

When I entered Caladon for the first time, I got REALLY TIRED of Arcanum, so I made a draw among my old games, which I plan to replay some of them, and Nosferatu: The Wrath of Malachi popped out! I'm about 2 hours in that game.

Still playing Tomb Raider (1), in the St Francis Folly level. That's like... the 5th level out of 15? Like 33% done?

Even though I have finished this game in the distant past once already, still proceeding quite slowly due to two things:

1. I play it mainly in late evenings in the living room after rest of the family has hit the sack already, so I usually become tired myself within an hour of playing and decide to hit the sack too.

2. I have set too high standards for myself, ie. play each level as long as it takes to find all the secrets, pickable items and kill all the enemies in the level. And since some of the levels have points-of-no-return, and I can't be sure if the secret/item/enemy I missed was before that point, I have replayed a couple of the levels from the start, to reach those early misses.

Which reminds me that I'd really prefer if these kinds of games (FPS games or action adventure games with exploration etc.) didn't have such points of no return which make it impossible to re-explore earlier parts of the level.

I recall being a bit miffed about this also in Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces 2, when I missed some secret and it was in the earlier parts of such levels. Both games (Tomb Raider and Jedi Knight) seem kinda uneven in that regard, ie. some levels do let you revisit any part of the level later on as well, while some levels don't. You never know, so at least save often, before every potential point-of-no-return.