[crzylgs]

I did the honours and can confirm all those games are there. You're probably harder pushed to find something that isn't there! You can search the 'Steam Workshop' for TTS here:

https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/about/?appid=286160

This is the easiest way to get games. All you have to do is to own TTS on Steam, search the 'Workshop', click 'Subscribe' and the content will be available for you to host. ONLY the host needs the game, when you invite others to join it is shared to them. There is no messing around moving files around on your PC or having to do anything remotely technical. Other content can be found elsewhere, for instance I like some of Games Workshop's offerings (40k, Killteam + Warcry) due to copyright you can find these if you look online a little harder.

Honestly if you have regular games nights I'm sure you'll love TTS. As I mentioned the group I played with most of them were much more board game savvy than IT savvy and they were all really impressed!

[Will Hunt]

This sounds very promising. I'm guessing that it doesn't work having two people playing separately on one machine, passing the laptop between them?

[crzylgs]

That definitely can work but might be little hit and miss depending on the game / how (if at all) it is scripted. We had people doing that on Friday and worked fairly well.

What people who were playing as a two did was to use mobile phones - with the Discord App downloaded - so that they could independently chat and not feel left out in that respect. Rather than say sharing a PC headset. If you do this you'll probably have to mute each other else a funky feedback loop/echo of sorts will occur.

[crzylgs]

If anyone does check out Tabletop Simulator I can highly recommend a game called 'Wingspan'. One of the best board games I've played. Its a deck/engine builder type game. Seemed fairly complicated/daunting when rules were being explained but after you've taken a turn or two it begins to make sense. Costs ~£80 for the physical version but is on TTS for free and has a legit advertised 'Wokshop' plugin (that looks almost sponsored or like it should be paid content) I have no idea how that is possible but not complaining 

[Will Hunt]

We just finished a game of Catan. Fairly simple, but I think the version that we used from the Steam Workshop made things pretty easy. Sitting at a desk with a mouse would definitely be an advantage. None of us has Discord so we just started a Whatsapp group video chat.

[JamieG]

I got my wife Wingspan for her birthday recently. We've only had one game so far. Was really good fun. Does seem daunting at first but quickly started to make sense. Beautiful illustrations on the cards.

Another computer game that I forgot to recommend is Dead Cells. Really good rogue like game. Lovely art, great character progression. Fun weapons.

[Fiend]

Finished DOS2 and can recommend it as one of the very best super-detailed RPG timesinks around as long as you can put up with the unbalanced cheese-reliant combat (which is actually okay if you play it in a "meta" way by playing the system).

Now on to Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order which has horrible floaty controls and drunk camera movement, broken combat balance, erratically mis-placed checkpoints and too much parkour as well as a main character who is an utterly uninspiring Disney-friendly soggy turd which I guess fits in well with the usual Jedi / human story which is by far the worst thing about Star Wars, BUT it does look amazing, has cool worlds and monsters, and is thankfully fairly chock-full of SW tech / vehicle / scenery pr0n which has always been by far the best bit about the franchise.

[JamieG]

Finished Outer Wilds. One of the most creative games I've ever played. Most definitely not your usual AAA fluff. Gives you that amazing feeling of discovery like few games I've ever played. It also has a surprisingly good writing, story and characters. Occasionally a bit janky and some 'puzzles' are really quite obtuse, especially towards the end (I cheated, got some hints and watched some YouTube). But overall a really fantastic experience. Recommended for people that like exploring a cool world (solar system), learning its secrets but not if you are an action junky. Quite a slow game.

Now playing pure AAA fluff. Borderlands 3. Feels exactly the same as Borderlands 2 (and the expansions I played). The humour is juvenile, the story stupid and you just shoot everything that moves. And I LOVE it. It's a massive guilty pleasure. I like the art, the bazillion guns and I obviously have a puerile sense of humour. Ace!

[Fiend]

Okay in case anyone needs the best pure ARPG in recent years here it is for 4 fucking fuckalls:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/219990/Grim_Dawn/

Beautiful graphics, stylish enemies, fun gameplay and all the fantasy rpg cliches you could want, grittier, less cartoony, and more challenging than Diablo 3, and more stylish, better themed and less dweeby than Path Of Exile.

[Fiend]

FAO Gamers: the two most recent Deus Ex games (Human Revolution and Mankind Divided) are properly good, and are now cheap as dirt on GOG - go get 'em: https://www.gog.com/news/dungeon_siege_and_deus_ex_series_now_available_on_gogcom

[Fiend]

Two 3rd person action games I've been playing recently:


https://store.steampowered.com/app/870780/Control_Ultimate_Edition/
CONTROL - finally released properly on Steam. Bloody brilliant. It's as good as the trailer implies, albeit with more intrigue / exploration / subtlety, although the combat is as fun and riotous as it looks. I never thought I'd be into wandering around an office block but it's the theme is exceptionally well done and quite captivating. It reminds me a lot of Prey 2017 (high praise!) with the combination of a "limited" world, plentiful exploration / unfolding, a very purposeful theme and an intriguing sense of menace. I've not finished it yet, but like Prey I've got the feeling I'll regret coming to the end.


https://store.steampowered.com/app/617290/Remnant_From_the_Ashes/
Remant: From The Ashes - quite different and very worthwhile in it's own way, with the caveat that some of the boss combat difficulty spikes are broken as fuck (i.e. 10x-20x +++ times harder than the normal maps / combats, I had to cheat through 3 (the WeMod cheat trainer works fine) and spend hours levelling up for one....oh and another boss arena took me 42 attempts / deaths, whilst the previous 3 large maps of the main gameworld had taken 3 deaths over 2 hours). Aside from that, this is a good, meaty, Soulslike game with shooting instead of melee and some fairly freshly themed worlds instead of the standard dark fantasy. Fun to mooch around, but notably the controls and gamefeel are surprisingly good for a 3rd person game - very crisp and direct, the combination of aiming, shooting, dodge-rolling and reloading in quick succession is satisfyingly slick and makes the non-boss combat quite a blast.

[JamieG]

+1 for Control. I've been playing through it on the PS4 and really enjoying it. Not sure how far through I am, but definitely enjoying seeing the mystery unfold. As Fiend says pretty ominous and weird atmosphere that manages to avoid most of the sci-fi type cliches.

[Plattsy]

Played a few hours of Hotshot Racing last night. Pretty good arcade racer. Polygon look with responsive quick controls. Huge nostalgia feel for 90s games like Outrun and Ridge Racer. In fact there's probably a bit of all those games in HR.

Also played a couple of chapters of The Turing Test. So far I'm really enjoying it. A sci-fi puzzler a lot like Portal.

[Aussiegav]

I’m looking for a hand held game option. Sick of having adverts to contend with on the iPhone.
An option  that has simple shooting style games. PSP hand consoles aren’t around anymore

[JamieG]

Nintendo Switch is the best option at the moment. If you are only interested in playing it in handheld mode (i.e. never docked to the telly) then you can by a lite version which is cheaper. https://www.nintendo.com/switch/lite/

As for games. Do you mean first person shooters? Then maybe the new Doom games which are on switch.

Or more top down shooters? Maybe something like Enter the Gungeon.

[Aussiegav]

Cheers

I’ll have a look at the lite.
Yes, first person shooters and years ago I had force unleashed which was good as well.
I remember playing Doom in the ?? early90s. Used feel sick if I played it too long

[Fiend]

The FPS genre, despite appearances, has died a bit of a death compared to the glory peaks of the Doom / Quake / Q2 / Unreal era and the HL2 / Far Cry 1 era. A lot of them tend to be big, homogenous interactive-movie / MP-focused / sandbox (delete as applicable, preferably from your hard drive) franchises like Call Of Duty  , Battlefield, Far Cry, Halo, etc etc. Or even worse, another sodding battle royale clone. (In contrast RPGs, 3rd person souls-likes, and turn-based strat have been as strong as ever.)

Proper, slick, creatively atmosphered action-orientated SP FPSes are somewhat rarer. Doom 2016 / Eternal are the flagships. Wolfenstein reboot series showed promise but turned into a messy OTT parody if itself. Dishonoured / 2 are brilliant games but errr slightly more on the "sim" style of intelligent FPS like Deus Ex. Prey 2017 does even more so and is also brilliant. There's been a resurgence in "modern retro FPSes" using retro graphics and retro gameplay to recreate the halycon days but they're almost all dire and completely miss the point.

The Nintendo Switch is meant to be very good for what it is.

[JamieG]

I really like my switch. It was perfect for when I was commuting on the train for an hour each way before lockdown. And I started playing it more than the PS4 at home too since I could just sit in bed and play it. Obviously the games aren't as pretty as they are on the PS4 but to be honest I don't really notice since i play it handheld most of the time.

Another first person shooter that is supposed to be good (although I haven't actually played it) is superhot. Its sort of a mix between a shooter and a puzzle game. Any other types of game interest you?

[Aussiegav]

Been in Clash for god knows how long. Got to TH11 and then fizzled out.
Just looking for something to play while in bed of an evening or in between dead hangs 😂😂

[Fiend]

Maybe off topic, but: XCom Enemy Within on  IOS, also Titan Quest. Both proper paid for games so no adverts. Maybe Warhammer Quest for something simpler.

(I recommend these as someone who has tried quite a lot of mobile games and has learnt to utterly despise the mobile gaming market, the business model, and almost all games within it)

https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/xcom-enemy-within/id881270303
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/titan-quest-hd/id1424977227
https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/warhammer-quest/id573516833

[SA Chris]

Been tasked with getting the lad a headset for his X BOX one. He's never really played much co-op games before, but he's getting SW Squadrons for Xmas, so I think it's time.

Selection is a bit over whelming though, is there much difference between £20 and £50?

[JamieG]

These ones seem to get pretty good reviews. And won't break the bank.

https://www.techradar.com/uk/reviews/turtle-beach-recon-70-headset

Haven't used them myself, since I'd need friends to play with . . . 

[SA Chris]

We got him a set, but for now he seems to be happy to play on his own.

Visually impressive game, but seems a bit samey? I've tried it, but it's a lot harder than he makes it look!

[Durbs]

Very late to the party, but it was on silly offer on the UbiSoft store, so picked up Assassin's Creed Origins. My first foray into AC, and lots of fun. Gorgeous looking game. Good story until the end, now just happily plodding around Egypt mopping up the quests.

For Board Game fans - I've been using Board Game Arena, which is a tie-in of Board Game Geek. Has some good games on there, Premium membership is only £22 p/a and lets you play with others in your house (and usefully friends/family playing in a different house) , share laptops etc.

Good range of games on there, and mostly well implemented. The UI for the lobbies, community etc is terrible, but the games are well done.

[Fiend]

I've been neglecting this thread, but not neglecting gaming due to obvious reasons, so here's a few updates....

2020 GOTYs:

1. Control
https://store.steampowered.com/app/870780/Control_Ultimate_Edition/
Brilliant smart intriguing 3rd person action with a likeable character, good exploration, and a characterful setting. Essential.

2. Metro Exodus
https://store.steampowered.com/app/412020/Metro_Exodus/
Great post-apoc FPS with strong atmosphere, fantastic detailing, and some good variety.

3. Hellpoint
https://store.steampowered.com/app/628670/Hellpoint/
Sleeper hit soulslike action RPG in a weird slightly abstract gothic sci-fi setting, plays and controls nicely (the "controller recommended" warning is a complete lie, it's fine with m+kb and slicker than the soulslike average)


And on the subject of Hellpoint I've been getting back into Soulslikes recently (despite boss combat frustrations, I generally love the exploration and convoluted level design), I managed to get a couple of bargains recently that I've been enjoying:

Lords Of The Fallen
https://store.steampowered.com/app/265300/Lords_Of_The_Fallen/
A few years old but not that dated, albeit a bit slow and clunky control-wise. I tried this years ago, didn't get on with the soulslike combat, had a strop and deleted it. A £2.50 repurchase on GOG sale was well worth it. Not a classic of the genre but plenty fun enough.

The Surge
https://store.steampowered.com/app/378540/The_Surge/
Another one, like Hellpoint with a different setting to the norm - this time corporate / industrial near-future sci-fi. Not my favourite style but it's still pretty cool, and also like Hellpoint, the controls are quick and smooth


* Worth noting that all of these games are massively discounted at the moment (ending today I think) due to the Steam Lunar New Year sale.... *


I've also got Sekiro stocked up, waiting for Nioh on discount. And got a couple of TBSes loitering in the background - Phoenix Point and Necromunda (hoping to do the last one at the same time as painting a classic Escher model for it).