There a youtube channel and a steam curator called Mortismal Gaming who loves CRPGs. Their shtick is also completing games at 100% before popping a review, and they are churning out new material at an amazing pace. Check it out for some decent coverage on the genre.
As for a maybe hidden gem, Age of Decadence looks pretty good. I have not played it yet, but the genre seems to match, and the premise is solid.
Expedition Rome is well appreciated too, even if it leans more toward tactical battles.
I mean, look at Silica and compare it COD or Battlefield. Smaller indie project, supported by a bigger publisher and filled with heart. It looks like a dream game from when I was a kid.
Battlezone meets Starcraft.
An absolute wannabe authoritarian brute. The institution pushing back against outrage could (and probably already has) lead to a massive Streisand effect.
I guess when I ran into Aesop Rock, and got absolutely infatuated? I don't do a lot of rap, so his stuff hitting so damn hard was a surprise.
I remember a few of the other times. Mostly it has taken the right moment, the right mindset and the right artist. A dark autumn evening and a walk in a park for Dark Sanctuary, falling asleep to SunnO))) and waking up to it was a mindblowing experience.
Carpenter Bruts album Trilogy opened up electronic music for me, and Crypt of the Necrodancers soundtrack cemented it.
Yeah, Addict is great for what it is especially for thr price. Paying that much for basically a nothingburger seems weird?
I really want to get Systen Shock remake, and maybe even the Final Fantasy* arpg, stranger something something.
I also ran across these two indies, Fear and Hunger 1&2 that look very interesting and are very affordable.
After reading what you've written, I want to agree with "you are cis and have aesthetic choices"? I mean that you can identify as masculine, but it's fine to prefer they/them on certain days and like nail polish and bracelets. Masculity shouldn't be thought of as being forced to be a certain way or act a certain way to qualify. Sure, some things are more associated wih masculinity, but in the end, you decide how you express yourself, and no-one else. Gender expression should be open to individual choice, same as how you define your gender identity.
Oh wow, it's still going? I really thought the game got shut down! It's a cool shooter, definitely fun to mess around in.
Driving people out because of their past isn't fruitful. Someone used to have bigoted views but something made them change their mind, and they pushed hard enough to reform their life? Sounds like they wanted it, and are probably a changed person.
I know a few people like this. They help others leave similar situations. Great people doing important work.
Just bought a wollen cape for those crispy autumn mornings. It's nice to lounge around in, but maybe I'll summon the courage to take it out too.
Kinda feels like a trenchcoat in function, but lighter and with a hood to boot.
I have two Hori sticks, the RAP4 (modded) and fighting edge unmodded.
Both work great on pc and playstation. Hori at least had a switch stick, but not sure if any more. It was based on the RAP, which is a fine stick, even out of the box.
If you don't have budget constraints, ordering a custom could work too, since you could get it to work on the switch and ps. I don't think many sticks support both out of the box.
If you can leave the switch out, Qanba is real nice. Razer sticks are pretty cool too, very heavy and boxy, but I like that. And Hori is a bit more budget friendly.
The Nacon stick with Sanwa parts seems like a good deal too.
"Dude just talking to people, everyone can do that".
Happened when I was kid, mid teens. I was playing Diablo at night, and remember being kinda on edge, since I wasn't supposed to - so I was keeping an eye and an ear on the house.
So, I'm slaying it in Baal Runs, and see something move across the doorway of the study, and just feel caught. It must have been mom, and I'm caught - since it was this average-height white figure, wearing a night gown. And no-one else is at home.
I leave the room and look left to moms bedroom and hear her snoring. There's no-one up inside the house, and no-one has crossed the doorway back into my mums bedroom.
This wasn't the only weird, spooky thing to have happened in that house, but it is the only one where I was strictly awake.
Yeah, I keep in touch. I experienced some deprivation as a kid, so as an adult, I pursue interests with glee. Maybe even to my detriment, but overall I think it's a positive thing to rush toward interesting things.
The flip side is, really draining sometimes, and I push it away in favour of gratification. Could also be a sign of an imbalance in life, if recovering from work-based responsibility doesn't happen well enough, and it intereferes with personal life responsibilites.
Tinder is very superficial and a hard platform to find people on. The gender ratio is very skewed and it turns against itself, since the competition for attention is so hard. This benefits the app though, since it makes peopel waste money on superlikes and whatnot - so they won't ever try to fix it.
You definitely aren't too old to date around and have fun meeting people. Mingling around in real life might be easier, since you don't have to rely on a single picture and a few lines of text to impress someone.
Oh you should, there's a good chance you'll like it. I'm thinking about giving it another spin too, since the new Zelda game seems to follow in its footsteps.
It really does loon like NS!
Dread Templar was great fun, and a very smooth experience. It even has melee weapons that aren't crap.
Wrath Aeon of Ruin was a mediocre experience for me. The shooting was fun, but there was a real lack of enemy diversity. I remember the checkpoints being funky somehow?
Og games like Quake, Doom and Unreal hold up really well. They can be modded to your hearts content too. Brutal Doom is just way too much fun
Blood is super fun, but unfairly difficult on the highest difficulty. It kicks your head in, until you learn, but every minute of the experience is fun. Until the maze-like levels and actual mazes make you dizzy.
Cultic is like a modern Blood, but an even more deliberate version. The demo is good fun and the game is cheap.
Poweslave Exhumed is something I remember enjoying as a kid. Iron Maiden themed romp through mummies. It kinda reminds me of...
Amid Evil and Hexen//Heretic. Both feature mystical weapons, mana for ammo and fantastical locations and monsters to kill. Amid Evil is a great shooter with survival modes, a full campaign and all Heretic and Hexen are older, more dated games that will hurt you. But I love them for it.
Dusk was rhe first new retro shooter I played, and it's fun. It's slick, has a nice deathmatch mode and the campaign doesn't overstay its welcome. I hear it has been surpassed by Hrot.
Blood West tricked me hard. It's not a boomer shooter, but more like a single player version of Hunt, or a wild-west monsterhunting Dishonoured? It's fun and unforgiving, but not a boomer shooter, even if it has guns.
EYE Divine Cybermancy could qualify, I guess. It's a trippy grimdark warhammer inspired rpg shooter. Very boomery in it's visuam style and lack of handholding, but definitely more modern than Quake.
Black Mesa is Half-Life, and it's good. Nuff said.
Haven't played enough of Hedon, Project Warlock, Ion Maiden, Incision, Prodeus, Graven or Rise of the Triad to say more than they exist.
I guess take it slowly and explore how self expression makes you feel? There might be a newfound euphoria in trying all the things at the same time, but I'm worried that this might lead to unsafe things, or maybe unsafe people.
Finding yourself is a marathon that can take a whole lifetimes worh of experiences, so take your time. I would suggest finding stuff to read, watch and listen to, that will give you more context to your experiences, maybe even new people to talk to?
I can try to dig up more resources, but I'll starg with a local one: https://en.seta.fi/lgbti-rights-in-finland-seta/materials/ Seta is a Finnish ngo that works with LGBTQ members of society, providing support, resources and aims to further their position through political influence.
An aboslutelty wonderful timewaster has been Brotato. Someone described my relationship to it quite well: it's like solitaire. Whip it out every now and then for a quick timewaster, win or loose, it's fun.
Boltgun was great too! So much Warhammer-infused fun.
Social work and sex ed with a smidgen of research.
I recently reorganized my vinyls, and came across a female fronted power trio of some cool bands:
Jex Toth Jess and the Ancient Ones and The Devils Blood
All play retro-inspired rock, and all are very nice.
Also, Tenhi. Tenhi is love.
Oblivion, Morrowind and probably Skyrim too. The open world didn't captivate me, it just felt too big, too sparse and ultimately not interesting.
Same goes for Breath of the Wild. The world is just too barren. It doesn't help that I feel like the weapon breaking is extremely stressful.
Red Dead Redemption 2 is too slow and clunky. The skinning animation made me uninstall. It does not respect my time.
Kinda funny, because I don't mind grinding in arpgs. Maybe because they are faster-paced when the combat happens, and then you start wracking your brain with the theorycrafting side of builds.
If you care about fashion, everything will go out of style every now and then. If you like cargo shorts, wear them. There's no reason to cater to someone elses gatekeeping. If you think that they don't fit your look, then that's a completely different issue.
They are very handy too in all the right ways.