This month I have been mostly playing

So thought I would go over some things I've been enjoying of late

Hitman: World of Assassinations
Latest version of the hitman franchise and now episodic with new "episodes" coming monthly which wasn't well communicated as the first time I played it I got to the end of the first playable area the paris fashion show and went "is that it where the hell is the rest of the game?"

Anyway this is the same sort of action stealth gameplay we've seen in previous games. It's essentially sandbox in construction it sets up an environment, there are two main ones at the moment and two tutorial levels, and gives you some targets and various tools and things scattered liberally about the level then leaves you to have at it. You could just go all guns blazing but the realism level is such that gun fights usually result in you getting killed. Most of the time the sneaky infiltration path making use of disguises and hidden routes into the area distractions to move guards out of the way and the various toys and environmental hazards at your disposal.

The game leans heavily on replayibility offering many different setups for killing off your targets some of them downright hilarious. In the paris fashion show mission where you have two targets one possible solution is to push one target off a two story balcony so they land on the other target killing both. On the most recent mission there was an exploding golf ball. There are multiple options like this distributed through the game and as you gain "mastery" levels you can unlock new tools and new ways to achieve your end goals.

The environments are extensive the first episode is a huge sprawling mansion and it's grounds the second is a small coastal town with mansion city streets beach church hidden secret bio weapons lab bakery all the normal stuff. People fill the world their conversations and interactions running around you some of them reveal clues as to possible opportunities for your job. There is also a lot of humor hidden in there. One conversation revealed to me that the secret family recipe the target was craving that his 4 star chef couldn't replicate was actually cheap tinned pasta sauce (I'd used it because it was expired so would poison the guy making him sick allowing me to push him off a cliff). Each of the playgrounds has lots of buried stuff hidden in there.

It also has a heavy online side where people or the devs can create special senarios in the sandbox for people to play.

Darkest Dungeon

An relatively old title but one I was playing a load of when I was at PAX. Sort of roguelike dungeon crawler. You send a team of four characters into various dungeons and try and get them to clear them. It's a game of comprimise and hard decisions where you maintain a roster of characters that you need to keep replenishing as they get killed or go crazy. There are trade offs as you play you have a light level fueled by torches the darker things are the more monsters have the advantage but lighting things burns through torches it also makes you more noticable more likely to get ambushed. There are also tradeoffs with characters the abomination class is a werewolf so they can take that form and are much more physically powerful but when they transform that causes stress on all the rest of the party which can cause first a good or bad buff then if left unchecked they just drop dead of a heart attack. Stress levels stay with the characters and have to be delt with between quests by giving them down time.

It's a hard game but it works in small repeated sessions of small play. In between maintaining and upgrading like xcom but with more cthulu. The art is fairly striking too mostly monochrome but with touches of colour. All in all it's a great game to pick up and play for a short while.

Templar Battleforce
Stumbled across this on steam it has simple graphics and slightly clunky not at all ripped off from space marines / 40K lore but it's surprisingly fun.

It's a tactical squad turn based rpg reminds me a bit of xcom you have a small team of templar knights piloting leviathan battle mech suits. They have different specialties and can be upgraded and equiped with better weapons armor buffs and various skills can be unlocked from a massive skill tree.

Gameplay is similar turn based action point affair the game storyline offers various choices of actions that alter the story but the story didn't really matter to me much. I ended up changing my squad into a heavy weapon wielding plasma cannon and flame thrower death squad. The game usually will start you off with a few on the ground templars and you then move through a level unlocking command points which when claimed give you the ability to reinforce summoning new recruits or seasoned veterans as well as supplies and the like. Enemies will have their own points like this and try and take yours so it's a game of attack and defense. The soldier types have overwatch which most of the time deployed correctly will destroy any enemies as they try and advance on their turn.

It is a scrappy looking game but surprisingly deep under that simple facade

Stephens Sausage Roll
Puzzle game where you have to cook sausages without burning them on a series of small islands by maneuvering a small guy with a little sausage fork.

An interesting yet frustrating game requires you cook the sausages but as the levels go the difficulty due to multiple sausages smaller islands and obstacles and the like makes it more and more complex.

Something I'd play for a bit then come back to later