Games you are playing or enjoyed playing lately (except FL/CF)

I played the first release of stalker and was pretty disappointed back then.
the game was hyped alot and this open world was something new

but missing features and the well overdue release were not beneficial for the game.
the graphics were already outdated when it was released and the story in that release was somewhat disappointing

putting that aside I believe this game should get remastered with a better game engine
the idea of the game is not bad and maybe with state of the art graphics I would play it again
I still remember the maps and locations.... personally I would prefer it to be a bit more open

Yeah... I forgot to mention those points under "playability" section.
Then again, I am not demanding of graphics. so might have overlooked that. Apologies for that.

And yes, the missing features hit that game hard... but I suppose that was what kickstarted the modding community. From minor fixes to mods that change and restore everything. AMK site (one of modding teams) is still alive, for example.

yeah, it has a big active modding community
every year its in the mod awards with 1-2 mods

I've been trying to find a community for Arma 3 and Squad. If anybody know's anything casual shoot it my way.

Finally caved and bought Stellaris (on sale). OP we should try to conquer the galaxy. Also been looking for a nice rebalancing mod. It seems the AI always have massive fleets and armies. All my fleets combined had a rating of 9k and my federation allies (lets say humans for example) has one battlegroup of over 22k.

A mod i used brought that number up to a whopping 163k! over 500 corvettes and holyshitfuck bogged down my system. The 22k was discovered when i turned the mod off and the map still had compatibility. Went from resource collection of over 10k Energy Credits/month with the mod on to 1k EC/m with the mod off. Also allowed for a 5000 star galaxy. It's frickin huge! Too big for me. I don't expand quick enough. Can't afford influence at the rate of expansion

the game does not run well with large fleets as the ships collide
also the endgame of a 1000 star galaxy is a nightmare since the game slows down

These holidays I played a bit of Road to Gehenna DLC for The Talos Principle... New worlds are impressive (despite being made of elements from the original game) and computer texts are even more entertaining
Maybe it's not so immersive as the original, but the atmosphere is still awesome!

I would strongly recommend The Talos Principle to all sci-fi lovers, even if you are not fond of puzzles (I wasn't before this game ).

looks pretty good

Looks a bit like Ostia Antica, the old Romanic trade harbor.

Maybe not in the same vain but over the holidays I came by a Half Life set, (Half Life, Half life 2, Deathmatch for both, Lost coast, and Episode 1 and 2). It is interesting to compare the graphics of Half Life and Half Life 2. I have been enjoying that for the last few days.

I also enjoyed Black Prophecy. It is too bad that it was never finished. I would love to have the roll and yaw features of BP in Crossfire.

lol unfortunately, I've only played Half Life Uplink, one of two free demos. But it was so damn addicting

Netstorm.

In my observations, the Thunder Faction is incredibly OP. Thunder cannons usually hit anything on the offensive and destroys it in a matter of a few shots. A Vander Tower with a Thunder Cannon are probably the most OP combo. Vandar tower able to destroy any Air Offense in a matter of a few seconds, and the Thunder cannon to annihilate anything in it's way (Unless it's a Sun Barricade)

The Sun faction is generically a Neutral faction. Any faction can involve Sun along with them. Sun units are not very strong in fact the Weakest among Wind, Thunder, and Rain, but still has it's perks. For example, a Whirligig base is cheap and spawns a Whirligig: A weak but very effective Air Bomber. A sun cannon, can turn it's cannons into four directions: Left, right, up and down, while other cannons can't. A sun tower isn't as strong as the Thunder Bulwark (Where sun tower has 2000 hp, and the Thunder Bulwark has 5000hp) but is cheap and very useful for last minute defence.

Wind is a very strong enemy and typically very hard to get rid off. The Crossbow, has a low range, but has an area to shoot it's small arrows at. It also shoots at Air Offensive units too. If anything crosses it's path, most will not see it back alive. A devil maker is a very dangerous unit. It produces an uncontrollable mini-tornado and devastates enemy troops. It generally lasts for about 30 seconds before it dissipates. If the Devil Maker isn't destroyed, it will keep spawning these thing's until it's deaths. The Wind tower is another OP unit. It has three vulnerable sides where it is easy to destroy, but it has an invincible side where no matter how hard you can hit it with massive firepower, it will not be destroyed. However vulnerable to air attacks.

The last is the Rain faction. They are generally the weakest of the four main factions. Coming above Sun. The Rain Cannon has a fast refire rate, shooting about three Ice Crystal shards per second, but takes four seconds to reload. The Ice Tower is generally weak, but is never destroyed. Instead, when weakened, it breaks then takes a couple of seconds to grow back to it's original state. The Cloud Floater is a well popular transport unit as it is a strong air transport, and can endure heavy hits, especially from Vander towers. The Crystal Crab aren't too well used. Only normally used when the enemy priest is incapacitated on a bridge. They also fetch Geyser crystals like every other Transport. The Man'o'war pool is very dangerous. Upon building this pool, a Man'o'war appears and unleashes electric madness upon your foes from above (As long as they are in range ofc). They generally take some effort to kill. A vander tower is not enough to kill the Man'o'war without causing Devastating Damage, but three Vander Tower's should do it.

Would write up some more info, but figured this was enough already lol

Okay, I also posted screenies from this game, but didn't pay attention to actual information about it - Battlefleet Gothic Armada.
Note that I have an obsolete version. The most recent DLCs added Space Marine and Tau factions.

Gameplay: BFGA is an RTS set in space based off a tabletop game Battlefleet Gothic. Basically "space" part is mostly neglected, ships by most part act like old wooden sea ships of the line. However sometimes the ships have macroabilities, such as boarding pods, Lightning Strikes (a teleport-assisted boarding; less effective but longer ranged and 360 degrees field of use as opposed to broadsides), torpedoes, Plasma/Disruption/Stasis bombs, bombers, fighter screens, assault boats and the like. Macroabilities can be set to autocast - and autocasting mechanics are quite smart when using torpedoes: the torpedoes will be launched when they can hit the enemy ship according to its current speed and direction, ditto for Nova Cannons and bombs.
The battlefield offers many hazards and opportunities, such as gas clouds that hide your ship, asteroid field that damage the ship but also lower accuracy of ships attacking it, and minefields.
You can plan your attacks or movement using Tactical Cogitator which slows down the game time. IIRC in MP it has limited amount of activations.
All ships have special orders, Lock On (increases accuracy and crit chances), Reload (reduces cooldown of all skills), Brace For Impact (reduces enemy's accuracy and increases armor) and Running Silent (grants concealment).
You can set a ship's fighting behavior as well: range, broadside/front facing and which board to turn towards the enemy (if you lost all starboard guns, set the ship to use port facing). Also you have various maneuvering.
Ships usually have regenerating shields and ability to make emergency repairs, as well as armor that lowers damage. The damage, however, is more than just stripping off hull points. The critical hits can affect the ship on throughout the match. Crits are: Generator Destroyed (ship loses shields and skills with affiliation: generator); Deck Destroyed (Special Orders and Deck skills are lost, detection range is reduced); Weapon Destroyed (one of weapon systems is disabled); Engines Destroyed (ship slow down); Fire Onboard (deals damage over time); Hull Breach (additional damage). You can pick which system on a targeted ship your ships will target.
Upon loosing Hull Points ships lose point defense guns, which defend the ship from interceppable attacks (boarding pods, torps, ordnances). These attacks can also be intercepted by fighters.
Upon taking damage and/or losing ships, your ships' commanders may decide that they weren't signing up for this and warp the flak out. You might let them run or execute the insubordinate captain and keep the ship in the fight, but the ship will suffer a Mutiny crit, reducing its effectiveness.
Ships can also collide with each other. Some factions (Imperial Navy and Orks) adapted that as a weapon. Ramming damage is determined by armor ratings and the size and velocity of the ramming ship: an Eldar light cruiser with 25 armor is seriously screwed if it's about to be rammed by an Imperial battleship with 75 front and All Ahead Full - and so is an Ork escort if its 50 side is rammed by Solar Sailing Voidstalker Battleship (which is, admittedly, just as screwed).
There also is a fleet management part: when you make a profile, at first you get three Light Cruiser slots, but as you level up and gain Renown you gain more slots. Maximal level is 8, allowing you to have 1 Battleship, 2 Battlecruisers, 3 Cruisers, 4 Light Cruisers. Each ship also has experience system and gains Crew Points each level and Upgrade Slot each two levels. Crew Points can be spent to improve ship's stats. Renown is spent on unlocking ship slots, installing skills and upgrades or getting priority repairs.
When your ship has taken heavy damage or been destroyed, it will be unavailable for the next battle (or two battles if it was destroyed). Upon warping out there is also a chance it will be Lost in the Warp, also making it unavailable for one battle. You can hasten the repairs of the ship with said Priority Repairs, but you can't get the ship un-Lost.
Ship classes are: Battleships, Battlecruisers, Cruisers, Light Cruisers and Escorts. Escorts can't be your flagships and line ships and can't use boardings or warp out, they don't have crew system, favors or skills and their commanders don't level up (they get upgrade slots when you level up, upgrades apply for all ships of the chosen type, e.g. to all Iconoclast Class Destroyers). However they are quite fast, can be taken in nearly unlimited numbers (as long as points allow and you have a flagship and at least one line ship) and are clean losses - they won't become unavailable due to destruction. Other classes also have different number of skill slots (Light Cruisers - 1; Cruisers - 2, BCs - 3, BS - 4).
You can give favours to ships. Each faction has 4 favours to choose, these give passive or active bonuses.
Weapon systems are Macrocannons (typically short-ranged projectile guns, they aren't very accurate but quite destructive), Lances (beam weaponry, long-ranged, always accurate and ignore some of enemy armor, but low rate of fire), Torpedoes (Ignore shields, damage whatever they hit, unlimited range, but can be intercepted by fighters and point defense guns) and Ordnance Launch Bays (bombers, fighters and assault boats).
Upgrades tweak up the ship itself and are divided in categories: Engine, Generator, Deck, Hull, Weapons. The tweaks are by most part a nice bonus. Factions have their own upgrades sometimes and those depend on the ship. For example, Imperial ships with Nova Cannon can't mount Power Ram, which is available to only Imperial Navy; Chaos has Camo upgrade instead. Some upgrades however are shared.
Skills are additional abilities and usually those are similar for all faction (Eldar replace some shield and combustion gauge related skills due to their lack of either). Those are divided into Defense, Damage, Control, Recon, Support and Maneuver, and allow you to further specialize the ship into a chosen role.

Factions:

Imperial Navy: Heavy-armored (75/50/50 Front/Sides/Rear) space-worthy cathedrals bristling with broadside guns. Imperial Navy ships are best at medium-to-close range brawls and have the best macrocannons. Most of their ships are equipped with torpedo launchers. They aren't really powerful at boarding, but quite good at ramming: nearly as good as Orks. They also have the Nova Cannon, basically an artillery weapon which can obliterate a squadron of escorts (but quite inaccurate, also ships with NC can't install a Power Ram). You also can get Melta Torps that always cause Fire Onboard crits, and an unique Torpedo upgrade.
Imperial maneuvering system gives you All Ahead Full, High Energy Turns and Burn Retros maneuvers.
Notable Imperial ships:
-Lunar Class Cruiser: Jack of all trades. Brawling up close, midrange lancing, torpedoing enemy, Loonie does it all.
-Dominator Class Cruiser: Better at brawling than Woonar. However it doesn't really want to be on the front lines, because it has a Nova Cannon.
-Dictator Class Cruiser: Your carrier, one thing of your cruisers Lunar can't do at all (though it IS a rebuilt Lunar). Also has torps and macrocannon decks for self-defense.
-Mars Class Battlecruiser: Your carrier, again. However it also gets two lance turrets and replaces torps with Nova Cannon.
-Retribution Class Battleship: Brawler with the capital B. Six plasma macrocannon decks, three lance turrets and eight torp tubes. Cannons have long range, but you'll probably want it up close. not to mention, you can slap a Power Ram on it.
-Emperor Class Carrier: Your carrier... ON STEROIDS. Four launch bays, some guns for self-defense, huge detection range at the cost of power ram and low speed.
Favours include:
-Inquisition: Each crew member gets one crew point. An ability to instantly identify an enemy ship.
-Adeptus Astartes: More powerful Lightning Strike. Additional boarding power and resistance.
-Imperial Navy: A ship can never be insubordinate. Can summon a Cobra Class Destroyer as a reinforcements.
-Adeptus Mechanicus: Extra skill slot. Extra upgrade slot.

Chaos: Average-armored (50/50/50) long-ranged fast attackers. Lances, lances everywhere! Where isn't a launch bay, that is. Chaos Macrocannons suck (doesn't stop them from having dedicated brawlers such as Murder Class Cruiser or Hades Class Battlecruiser) and they lack torpedoes (Infidel Class Raider and Desolator Class battleship), but their lances are awesome and they have a carrier vessel in each class. To compensate for their relative lack of survivability - or to compliment their lethality at long ranges - their ships are quite fast. Other than that they are average at everything.
They share maneuver system with Imperials.
Notable ships:
-Hellbringer (Mk2) Light Cruiser - Squishy lil' LC with long range; basic Hellbringer is your first carrier while Mk2 is your lanceboat.
-Devastation Class Cruiser - basically takes both Hellbringers and rolls them into one ship, Devastation carries two lance decks and two launch bays.
-Styx Class Battlecruiser - Another carrier, it can launch just as many squadrons as Emperor Class Battleship can, but its own firepower is just two lance turrets and some pew-pew guns.
-Acheron Class Battlecruiser - Four lance decks, two lance turrets. May laser show commence!
-Desolator Class Battleship - And since we're about laser shows. Six lance decks. Also only Chaos Line Ship to carry torpedoes (eight tubes).
-Despoiler Class Battleship - I would have said "your carrier", but that would imply Despoiler doesn't have any firepower on its own. Four macrocannon decks, three lance turrets and prow lance battery - on top of four launch bays.
Favours:
-Khorne: BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!.. Ahem. Khornate ships get an improved Lightning Strike and improved boarding game.
-Nurgle: These ships can deal damage over time to nearby enemy ships and gain increased resistance to boarding.
-Slaanesh: All enemy ships around a Slaaneshi ship have increased insubordination chance. in addition, you get an ability that turns off targeted ship's Special Order and abilities.
-Tzeentch: Your Running Silent order is replaced by the ability to create a cloud around the ship, which is basically "Running Silent Aura". In addition, you can launch a fake blip into desired direction and swap places with it at will (blip disappears when detected). Also Tzeentchian ships are the prettiest, Slaanesh, eat your thirty-six hearts out.

Orks: Orkz are operatin' not like dem 'umies. While dem Imperial or Chaos gits build dem shipz by templatez, we do ship makin' right an' proppa Orky way (75/50/25 armor). When you get a basic ship, you get to kustomize it spendin' Kustom Points dat come with it to replace itz basic grot gunz with whatever meks have in store for dat ship. Want a karrier Lite krooza like them spiky boyz' Helbies or dem panzees' Solaris? Yous get it. Dat'z why we get only one ship type fer each class. Wat yous don't get is da Running Silent order, 'cuz bein' silent iz not Orky way of wagin' WAAAAAAAAAGH!!!
Orkz are not rly good at dakkain' at da gits from afar, dats sad but true, if ya want to remedy dat youz can alwayz get dem flyboyz on fighta-bommaz or da Zzap kannonz (Orky lances) or da assault boatz. But once we gets close none of 'ese gits can stand up to us, so we can krump 'em right an proppa Orky way. We are da best in da boardin' aside from dem tincan boyz dat came out with da DLC but itz da DLC so zog dat noiz. We also have Boardin' Torpz for moar assault akshunz.
Ork shipz have da only one maneuver, Da Big Red Button. Once it'z pressed da ship will charge forward and won't slow down until combustion gauge runs out. (NOT yelling "WAAAAAAGH" while big Red Button is active is a capital offense.)
Da Ork kaptins are quite insubordinate bunch an' can start warpin' out more often. 'owever, da Ork Warboss can put a caged squig as an upgrade so if da kaptin tries to warp out, next thing he'll see will be dat squig. From inside it.
Favours:
-Goffs - yous get da Ramming Gob dat acts like dem humies' Power Ram and bonus to boarding game.
-Blood Axes - yous get da Runnin' Silent order an' a Nova Kannon. Since Nova Kannon was made Orky it can blow up during firing in one of six cases. You can get away with just whispering "WAAAAAAAAAGH" when using the Big Red Button now.
-Bad Moonz - Yous get a Shokk Attack gun dat's a longer-ranged Lightning Strike - but not as orky since it shoots grotz - an' extra Upgrade slot.
-Red Sunz - Yous get a Trakktor kannon which is da Orkiest weapon in da game 'cuz nothin' screams Orkz like tossing dem Eldar kroozas around into minefields/asteroids/each uvver/watever youz got. Also, remember the Big Red Button? Red Sunz have Bigger Red Button. Actually just improves combustion gauge for longer bursts of speed.

Eldar: Very fast, die if anything looks at them funny (25/25/25, suffer crits at higher rate). Being rammed by Orks/Imperials is a death sentence... in fact, even being rammed by Chaos is a death sentence. In addition... they don't have shields. Direct Nova Cannon hit can severely damage an Eldar cruiser, and Lighting Strikes can commence unopposed. However, Eldar have Holofields to protect themselves from macrocannon and lance fire. Holofields' effectiveness depends on how fast the ship is going, up to 80% (40% if generator destroyed) chance to outright negate hits - but 0% (can be upgraded to 20%) if standing still. Holofields don't work against rammings, torps and ordnances (They can get a skill athat summons a free fighter squadron to protect from bombers) as well as AoEs. They also have different way of suffering Engines Destroyed crits: the penalty is smaller but you can get that crit more than once and penalties stack. They are very weak to boardings too.
From the other side, their macrocannons have better accuracy and they have Pulsars, short-ranged lances that are forward-facing and fixed (fire only in a straight line, think Cruiser Forward Guns in CF and you won't be far off). They are fired as a macroability, but are incredibly powerful. Their bombers and fighters are the strongest, but they have no assault boats.
They have only one maneuver, the Solar Sails, which just gives them burst of speed. They also have a skill "Vaul's Maneuver" available that instantly turns the ship 180 degrees.
They don't have a lot of ship types either. However, one stands out:
-Voidstalker Class Battleship - Four pulsars, bunch of macrocannons, four launch bays, and very fast. Still huge and still fragile for a battleship. If it soaks four Engine Destroyed crits, it is probably going to die by being rammed to death. Assuming it didn't already cut everyone else apart by pulsars or bombers.
Favours:
-Ulthwe: Penalty lo enemy Lightning Strikes against the ship, ability to place a damaging AoE.
-Alaitoc: Ability to make an assault action on any identified ship regardless of the range and concealment when stationary.
-Biel-Tan: improved Lightning Strike, additional boarding resistance.
-Saim-Hann: Bonus damage when concealed, ability to disrupt enemy scanners in a wide area (fun when this ship gets an Augur Probe strapped to it).

Hmm, my favorite Card game is Uno, but cards aside..

Jacked

A motorcycle game as you'd think of it, however a bit more extreme.
You start off with a basic bike and a mission. Race three laps around a map and come 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place, it may seem easy to some, but trust me it's not. They can pick up Stan Batons, spiky baseball bats (Like Lucille), Molotov Cocktails and crowbars to try and stun you and take your bike. Of course you can do that to them, but that takes several hours of practise. And that's in the simple missions. The harder missions are gang battles. You are the leader of one gang with four people in your team, and the enemy has five in their team. Your objective is to kill the enemy gang leader without dying yourself. Normally, there is around 3-10 matches in one mission. The next mission explained is the time trial. Naturally, no one can do this in their starter bike, it is impossible, so stealing someone else's bike in the missions before is a good idea. You have to try race three laps in the one map within the current time limit. PREEETY DAMN HARD imho. Last but not least mission is the Catch the Hostile sort of mission. You start out maybe 500m behind some other biker who has to try run three laps without you jacking his bike. This is where the several hours of practise hits off, due to him always having a better and faster bike, (Unless you both have the Superbikes). However he defends himself with whatever he can throw at you. Again very hard.
iirc, you can also grab standard issue pistols to shoot at them and stun them, very hard but good game overall

You r counting?

I am sure nobody even noticed that a paragraph dedicated to Orks was written in Orky language.
I did plan to make it shorta but then I decided that those not interested won't bother to read it regardless of whether it's a few words or an entire Mork-damn (or was it Gork?) review so zog dat noiz.