Been a bit, but thought I'd update.... Games I Am Playing:

Valheim. It's early access, and that becomes obvious fairly quickly. However... it's a lot of fun. Been playing with Shiny and a bunch of people from the US... set up a dedicated server here we can play on. So far we've beaten all but the last boss, I believe, so pretty close to the end of what's currently available. The building and crafting is pretty fun, as is raising the "pets". Some pretty big bugs and problems, but considering it's early access it's pretty stable. Recommended if you like this type of game.

Star Wars: Squadrons... I love Star Wars, so this game is right up my alley. Unfortunately it's an EA game, so there are some pretty significant problems. So, unless you're a Star Wars fan, I'd avoid it.

Everspace ... I've owned this game for a while and started playing it fairly recently. It's a space-based rogue-like..... and I really enjoy it. If you're into space piloting games and roguelikes, definitely check it out.. but it's a roguelike. It takes a lot of playing and dying to really enjoy, so if that's not your thing, avoid. The really cool thing with this game is that even when you "beat" it, you just unlock the next level of the game. And you can't beat it without dying.

Shall we make an effort to coop something this weekend. MoW, Borderlands, l4d2..

What about this weekend, anyone up for something?

I got bored of Valheim. Been working my way through my Steam backlog and the occasional new game.

Everspace is pretty awesome if you like Roguelikes and space flying.
Battle chef brigade is a puzzle game mostly, with some 2d fighting thrown in. It was fine.
Injustice: Gods among us is a fighting game (a la Tekken but with DC heroes/villains). I just went for the single player. Consolitis is a real problem.
Titanfall 2: Played it for the story. It was fine. Not amazing, but pretty decent as well. There were parts that had me rolling my eyes, though.
Star Wars: Squadron. Blah. I should love this because I love Star Wars... but I didn't.
Hitman 2 - played the free level... it was fun. I don't want to pay $100 for all the levels... waiting for a sale.
Battlefield 1 - bought if for the single player. Currently not so impressed, but it has potential. It also cost me less than $10, so I can't complain.

That's about it for me.

Well I've got Ark and been playing it quite a bit the last 3 days. I just reached level 33 before I logged off (just doing some singleplayer on the first map at the moment). I've been doing ok I think. I have a couple of fields that are irrigated, 5 parasaurs including a tek one, 4 pteranadons, 2 dilophosaurs and 4 dodos. I did have an iguanodon but I'll get to what happened to that in a minute.

Today a brontosauras decided to spawn right near my camp. I started at an easy place, down on a sandy spit of land and it spawned halfway up that. I wandered over to take a look, riding my trusty first tame, Gary the parasaur. I jumped off Gary and got nearer the bronto. I randomly ended up standing on its tail so of course I ran up on to it's back. One of those damn bird things (argentavis maybe?) started swooping around and I thought "this is going to go wrong" but swung my torch at it anyway. I scored a few hits each time it came down. Then I don't know if I clipped the bronto or not but suddenly I was in a world of pain. I leapt off its back and tried to run but wham! Tail to the face and that's it. As the lights faded I registered Gary valiantly defending my honour.

So of course as I respawn I know all I'm finding of Gary is a corpse. Ran up to get my stuff back off him and that was that. RIP Gary. I get on with building up my base, setting up the feeding trough, breeding my pair of pteranadons and getting twins, a male and a female. As I'm doing all this a second bronto has spawned and they're both headed towards my base. One ends up trampling all over it. Luckily no damage. The other went off up the other side of the spit of land and is now spending his time hanging out by a cliff back by the mainland. The one in my base has refused to leave for about 5 hours now. He wants me to tame him!

I tame my iguanodon and love his speed so I have a few random trips east and west along the shore, dodging alligators and snakes. Eventually I ran up onto the cliff not far from my base; I'd run up there yesterday and seen a horse roaming but hadn't gotten very close. Today I rode closer. Not just a horse, it's the unicorn! It didn't spook but I circled for another look and it had enough. Off it ran. I'd been preparing to catch a horse for a while so I headed back, crafted the saddle, grabbed a ton of mejoberries (don't have any rockarrots yet), leapt onto Pascal the iguanodon and headed after it. I came across it again down near the water where it was running from a raptor. I threw a bola but it didn't work, think I hit it in the body. Off it ran down the shoreline. I followed it but couldn't find it again. I did however see another tek parasaur. I want a male so I can breed mine so decided to head back the next day as it was getting dark.

Big mistake! Off I go again but this time there are way more alligators and snakes hanging around. I stupidly head into the water to avoid some that I can see on the shore ahead of me, thinking I can cut across to the other shore. Of course there's an alligator in the water. I got to the other side somehow but poor Pascal lost his life just as we got there. I was looking for a female for him too but haven't seen any more iguanodons at all. Then I realise there are 3 of the buggers after me and I somehow ended up trapped on top of all 3 of them taking a ton of damage. Unsurprisingly I died.

I have just realised as I write this that I still had a parasaur saddle at my base. When I respawned I forgot that and thought "damn there goes my only saddle". I headed back on foot in an attempt to at least recover my corpse and maybe get it nearer to home before I died again but no such luck. I died horribly before I was anywhere close, to a baryonix. It's in a horrible area with raptors, snakes, alligators and probably a ton of other things I didn't even see through all the teeth clamped around my face.

I respawned and will be more sensible this time. I'm going to craft multiples of everything so I always have spares. I might just get to 38 so I can craft my pteradon saddle and scout the land. And I'm definitely breeding up a herd of dilophosaurs to spit at anything that comes near me. A third bronto has spawned by my base too so maybe I just need to level right up and tame them, then rampage across the land.

Can you tell I'm enjoying it so far? I've included pictures of my future pets

Hmm, If I bought the game would I be able to join your map?

Not that one as it's singleplayer, I assume you can't open those up to multiplayer? But we could certainly start up a multiplayer one! Or Satis has his existing one if we ask nicely

Satis do we need any of the dlc to play on your server?

I got high enough level to ride one of my pteranadons today. I had a very explorey kind of day anyway. I got a raft and explored the south coast to the east where I witnessed a T-Rex get destroyed by two stegosaurus'. I carried on further and when I came back the same two stegos were destroying another T-Rex while in the background a third T-Rex had stupidly picked a fight with 3 brontos. Then I went flying over to the west and was very careful about landing on rocks so we didn't get eaten whenever stamina was low. It started getting dark so I headed home and hung out until light. Then I headed out again, intending to retrace my sailing steps but got distracted and headed a little inland. Again going fine, landing regularly in safe spots. Until it decided to ignore the rock I was basically on and when I hit land it headed for the swamp at the bottom of the cliff. I hit to fly again hoping it would cancel the land but must've hit the wrong key or something. Next thing I know I'm sailing towards the ground without a dino under me! The fall wasn't from very high by that point and was rather softened by a titanaboa. Who of course instantly started to eat my face. I ran, whistling my dino who just disappeared. I got to the other side of the swamp somehow but then a different alligator-type thing to last night grabbed hold of me. Somehow by punching it, I knocked it unconscious but then the snake venom took hold and I was unconscious myself. Still aware enough to hear the snake finally catch up with me though and boom, another death.

This time I'd prepared so all I lost was some cooked meat, a water bottle and 3 parachutes but it's still annoying! Oh and a brand new set of chitin armour (only 4 pieces as I didn't have enough chitin for the legs). It didn't say my pteranadon was dead though so I'm now scrounging up the resources to get another saddle and go flapping about on one of my others to look for him. Of course it's the chitin I'm short on and while there are usually trilobytes galore near my base, I've found a grand total of two since looking, one of which gave no chitin.

I also lost my two dilophosaurs plus Nigel the parasaur earlier. I was hitting a rock and a triceratops wandered behind me, must've somehow got smacked and took offence. It was only about level 2 but I died and my dinos died. I've been extra careful since then, especially as there are now a good 7 or 8 of them wandering near my base. Oh and also when I first loaded it up there were now four brontos right by me! One has since wandered off, two are down by the mainland but still close by and the other is still trampling up and down my base. On the plus side a second tek parasaur spawned right next to my base so I tamed it. Another female though.

Sorry, just signed on. The server I've been playing on isn't actually mine, it belongs to one of my gaming friends. Seems like you guys have it under control, though.

BTW, just FYI, horses/unicorns are not active tames. They're passive. Means you can't stun them or knock them out, you have to sneak up on them and feed them carrots or whatever from behind. So don't try to knock it unconscious, you'll just kill it. If you're not familiar, Dododex is the definitive source on creatures in Ark.

Already nerded on dododex back when I was checking out mobile and of course horses were one of the first things I looked at Just need to track the damn things down. I've looked on maps as to where they should spawn and not seen any in the 3 or 4 spots I've looked at! Then again currently my exploration = hop on pteranadon, flap around landing on rocks regularly, panic as soon as I get near giant snake areas, flap home like a wussy.

Well, I picked up Assassin's Creed: Greece Addition and played quite a bit of that... good stuff mostly. I definitely enjoy it. Some friends and Shiny and I picked up D&D: Dark Alliance. It's an ok hack and slash. I'm only playing to spend time gaming with shiny and some of my other friends. I would not recommend it at full price, I'm afraid to say. Nothing much beyond that except work.

I've been playing Battlestar Galactica Deadlock. It's basically BSG where you build/control fleets and fight tactical battles. It's ok, but definitely not good enough for me to want to buy the expansions. I'll finish it and move on to something else soon.

I picked up Back 4 Blood. Its ok. The bot AI is pretty much on par with shoving a live grenade into a washing machine, turning it on and then watching what happens. In rare cases though the bot autoaim has been more useful than other players.

Is it like Left4Dead, where if you have fellow players that aren't Derf and Ocram it can be fun? (I may still be bitter. I may still have ocram blocked on Steam)