Star Trek: Resurgence

The Telltale engine works pretty well to help emulate the pressure situations you might face as a captain of a Star Fleet vessel - you're put into critical situations and forced to make snap decisions before a timer expires and chooses for you.  Oftentimes there is no clear "right or wrong" as well.

In between is a bit of tediousness that is common to Telltale titles as well, and even a fan of the show will eventually tire of "press 'w' to lift hatch".  Towards the end, some of those events felt tedious as I was just looking for the right thing to click.

Great experience.

Monster Hunter Wilds

What can I say?   I love hunting impossibly huge monsters.   And what Dark Souls does to realistic combat with amazing hitboxes, Monster Hunter Wilds does to the sense of being an anime badass while fighting.  Giggity.

The Monster Hunter franchise does a fantastic job making each weapon not only feel completely unique in how to utilize it, but uniquely badass.   I kept to the hammer because there's something so fulfilling about a big bonk ... it is underpowered, more about knocking a creature out than damage - but satisfaction level maxes out at 100% when you clobber noggin just right.  Giggity giggity.

I think I'll keep it installed to enjoy the updates.  The franchise has a huge library of monsters that they can bring as flavor/hunt of the week.  Giggity giggity goo!

Road 96

Road 96 has you playing as a series of teens trying to make it to the border while learning about the dystopian land that is keeping you held hostage.  It draws pretty strong parallels to todays politics and abuses of power, but ramps it up to 11.

In the world of Petria, Tyrek is the president exploring ideas for a third term - kids are attempting to flee the country, but crossing the border wall is a crime punishable by being sent to "the pits", which is apparently some sort of work detention camp that teens don't return from.

The gameplay incorporates a series of episodes along the road where you decide how you're going to take the next leg of the journey and attempt to refuel enough between those trips by eating and sleeping, or earning enough money to travel in style.  Crossing the border wall is the difficult final step -- and each of your characters has the chance to make it, get caught or die trying.  

All but three of my characters made it -- two were arrested (once while unaware of game mechanics, once because I like to maintain a perfect record of SAVING PEOPLE WHEN PROMPTED), and one died in self-sacrifice for a friend who was transporting some vital information.

A really great way to tell a story.

Prey

Prey is a game that has a lot of potential, it's a remake of something that was apparently pretty amazing and they did this in lieu of making Prey 2.   While the engine might be technically better, while the story might be something amazing and full of nostalgia, for someone coming to it new -- it didn't feel any different than every other game like this I've ever played.

It's painfully sparing on ammo, and involves hunting around the station doing some puzzle solving in order to progress while avoiding these big oily alien entities.  

I stopped playing a while ago and just never got back to it .. might be worth watching a Let's Play for the story, but I'm at that grim point of "far enough in not to be able to get back into it" so it's getting shelved.

Schedule 1

Schedule 1 has you following in your uncle's footsteps after he is apprehended by the police and setting up your drug empire.

The game does a good job allowing the user to grow (heheh) in the operation, first doing everything manually from growing to selling - to hiring people to do it all for you.  

I'm a sucker for a good automation system, by the time I had conquered the town my bungalow was an automated grow room and my barn had four chemists to keep up with the meth demands.

Pretty fun for being early access even.