You can pay to get things done more quickly, but you don’t have to pay to win. It just takes more time. From what I hear from players of the game, there’s no actual gameplay advantages locked behind a paywall, only cosmetic items. They obviously want you to pay to proceed faster, but it doesn’t appear to be like some games that make free players use lower tier weapons and items. You can earn all gameplay items through grinding it out and never need to spend any money.

Just a heads up for anyone intrigued by the discussions, there’s a 5 game Deus Ex bundle on Steam that’s on sale for less than $10 right now!

You’ve got a nice variety of games to try there! Trombone Champ was pretty huge for a while there, but I had pretty much forgotten about it. Maybe I’ll grab it just for the laughs.

I never got into Fallout either, although I only ever tried 4. I did have someone mention that I should try the earlier games as apparently the tone of them is different. It’s sometimes hard to overcome first impressions though! It’s great that the show gave you the boost to get hooked!

That’s really what is holding me back from getting it. The idea sounds really interesting, I’m just worried that I won’t enjoy the actual gameplay. I’ve had it in my cart a couple of times during sales but I never end up getting it.

What you said about micromanaging things does help. I don’t mind a little micromanagement in games like Age of Empires or Civilization, but if you get too much of it happening I tend to get a bit sloppy. I’ve found it depends a lot on my goals for the play session and also how long I’ve been doing it.

It’s something I’ve looked at before, and while it looks like it could be a fun game, I don’t have that much time to spend grinding! It definitely appears to be one of the more fair f2p games out there though.

I don’t play the series, but they’re definitely very cheap right now!

Sounds like a really good deal! I’ve got all of the Witcher games, and they’re pretty good. I’m not really a Star Wars fan, otherwise I would pick up some of the games while they’re on that deep a discount! It makes me wonder how good some of them are for a non fan.

Ghost of Tsushima is a game I’m definitely keeping an eye on. I’ve unfortunately been disappointed with a lot of the recent PlayStation PC releases though, so I’m a bit wary. I’ll wait to see what kind of discounts show up in a year or so!

No problem! :-)

The Total War games look really interesting, I should give them a try. I play Civilization, Age of Empires, and Crusader Kings though, so it’s sometimes hard to fit a new series in. I do see that Atilla is the newest game without Denuvo though, so I might just grab it!

I didn’t realize that, thanks for the info!

I do enjoy that type of game by spells, so I might have to get it the next time I’m in the mood for that! It does look interesting.

No one here could ever have a backlog, right? ;-)

I used to play Terraria years ago, but it’s been a while! Satisfactory looks pretty interesting, but I’ve never played it.

My partner and I both have hundreds of hours in it, so that could be possible! Try not to have super high expectations for it before you start though, I wouldn’t want you to miss out on a fun game because fans hyped it beyond what it is.

That being said, both of us are pretty big fans of the game. We drove quite a distance to go to one of the Stardew Valley concerts, and it was really great. I’m not someone that likes crowds, but all the fans there were very friendly and it made for a great time.

Thanks for the recommendation! It’s not necessarily something that would jump out at me, but it seems people really like it.

I’m sure we will! I saw a list being created, so I’m sure there will be a few. I did give a warning about the infamous Steam backlog, but I don’t want to ruin the fun of a new device! So we’ll see what happens.

Not sure what platforms you have available, but it’s 30% off on the Steam summer sale!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1888160/ARMORED_CORE_VI_FIRES_OF_RUBICON/

I’m somewhat the same. Really no interest in Dark Souls/Elden Ring or any of that, but Sekiro did catch my attention before. The difficulty is a turn off though. I often play games on hard difficulty, but I prefer it to be a choice, and to be able to turn it down if it’s too difficult.

I didn’t realize they had it ported to the Switch! I can definitely see it struggling to keep up with the game, but it sounds like it’s still at least playable.