On the contrary of “go slower,” I suggest you actually move faster. Bots cause issues when dropships come in. Sometimes, even when you’re doing everything right, you can still get a flare set off, and if you’re trying to clear a base and a dropship comes in, it gets a hell of a lot harder. The longer the mission goes on, the stronger the bot patrols and reinforcements get, so the best option is to treat almost everything like a blitz mission.

Most of what I’m gonna say, you probably already know given your loadout. The big difference between bot outposts and bug nests is that you don’t need an angle for a guaranteed airstrike to take out a factory. If you’re running the autocannon, you can take out factories if you’re in front of them from a hell of a distance. Just aim for the upper part of the vent from within about 45 degrees of dead-on, and the factory goes up. If a flare goes off, it’ll be dropped on the bot calling it in, and by the time they land, they won’t have any idea where you are if you run. If you can’t get line-of-sight on a vent, run up, call in an Eagle Airstrike, and run off again. For light and medium outposts, you can get in and out in no time.

For just regular patrols though, if you have to engage, engage at a distance. I’d swap out the mortar sentry for an autocannon sentry, mostly because it brings more immediate results, with less of a chance of killing you if the bots get too close. If you shoot at them from a distance, they’re more likely to have less time to react, and not get a flare off, which again, is the worst outcome of engaging. Deal with it, and move on. Don’t get bogged down in engagement.

Aside from that, the only real change I’d make is swapping out the orbital laser for the orbital rail cannon. You’re not limited to just 3 uses, and while your autocannon can deal with sneak attacks on big bots, sometimes you just need to delete something. If they’re close enough together, I’ve even seen it take out 2 hulks. You can get rid of a big threat every two and a half minutes, and not sacrifice speed. Only other difference between your loadout and mine is that I’m using the Liberator as my primary, but if you’re happy with the Adjudicator, keep it.

For your team wanting to shoot everything, if they’re going to insist on drawing aggro, let them. Do objectives, be proactive. You get a lot more bots from an area filled with outposts than an area empty of them, and you’ll lessen the number they have to fight. Finish a spot, move onto the next, and do it fast.

One minor thing, factory striders. These things were built to withstand tons of air strikes, and even eat orbital lasers and rail cannons. But if you take off the machine guns on its chin, and walk up to it and unload on its belly with the autocannon, they go down very fast. The biggest challenge will be getting your team to stop calling in airstrikes so you can do it.

I genuinely enjoyed Arkham Knight, but those mandatory Batmobile sections are easily the most miserable part of the game. If we had those for an entire game, it might not be too bad, but most of the time you just end up using it to get from point A to point B. If you can put up with being stuck for a bit on those sections, you might enjoy it.

Its big issue is that it has to follow up on Arkham City. It’s not a bad game by any stretch, but it’s following up to one of the best superhero games out there. If you’re not invested in the story, there’s no harm in dropping it. Play something you’ll have fun with.

Check the patch notes here. A week ago they tried to up the difficulty for solo players who would stealth around the map. If you look under the section Enemy Patrols:

Patrol spawning has been increased when there are fewer than 4 players. The fewer the players the bigger the change. For 4 player missions there will be no change compared to before.The biggest noticeable change will be for solo players at higher difficulties

This clearly isn’t Menkent. Nothing is on fire.

The game didn’t really appeal to me, but I want to say that the trailer music absolutely slaps.

Yeah, someone did some testing and showed it a few days ago. Allegedly gas might also be affected.

Yeah, but there’s still the issue that burning damage doesn’t appear to work for anyone but the host. Unless you’re leading those squads, there’s still no reason to use the Breaker Incendiary or napalm.

You can get past the black screen by deleting the config file in the game’s appdata. After that, it’ll launch, you’ll apply settings, and you’ll get stuck on the “Defrosting Helldiver” screen because you can’t access a server, and be stuck with a black screen the next time you launch. I’m having so much fun.

We are the Dorg. You will become a good boy. Resistance is futile.

To preface this, I don’t really like JRPGs. Especially turn-based ones. That doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate them, it’s just that a lot of them have had, in the past, an emphasis on things like grinding over gameplay. This might not be true for more modern ones, but considering I largely avoid the genre, I don’t know.

All that said, Sea of Stars does everything so right. I remember playing Persona 5 and having a blast, primarily because of the story and presentation, but Sea of Stars not only has that, but does everything it can to keep you immersed.

Combat is turn-based, but you have the opportunity to time button presses to attacks to do extra attacks. I know that sounds not amazing, but the combat system also requires attacks of specific types to stop an enemy from doing a special attack. Nail the timing, and you can interrupt an attack completely. Fail, and you either have to brace for it, or find another way around it (and early game, that’s not an option most times). Likewise, timing the button press when getting hit blocks damage, and with an item early on, it also recovers MP. The game goes all in on rewarding you for actively playing instead of just sitting back and clicking through menus.

Plus, the traversal is just so great. Yeah, an isometric game has great traversal mechanics. It feels weird saying that, but it does. Almost every screen has multiple layers to move up and down, making it feel like a real world instead of just walking from point A to point B. Plus it encourages exploration of those layers for cooking ingredients and treasures, which are hidden away in secrets, but if you’ve played enough games you generally know where to look.

This is also going to sound kind of like more weird praise, but there’s no bullshit with needing to find several keys spread across the world to go back to one location to get a chest. Everything you see can be obtained if you can figure out how to get to it, with literally one exception that I’ve found in the first right hours. The puzzles aren’t that hard, and as long as you’re thorough you can find everything.

Regarding the story, it’s nothing groundbreaking, but it’s presented so well that it’s still entertaining. It’s almost relentlessly positive, and even the darkest parts are handled in the manner of “we’ll get through this” instead of “this is hopeless.” It’s good, but it’s not the best I’ve played (though given everything else, I wouldn’t be surprised if it improved later).

I have no idea if you’ve played, or even heard of, a GBA series called Golden Sun. It feels a lot like a spiritual successor to it. But the thing that keeps me playing is that not only is the gameplay fun and the story entertaining, but it seems to absolutely value your time. No grinding, you’re capable of maintaining your party through good combat decisions, and limited backtracking. You’re not there to play a game, you’re there to experience a journey, and it keeps you moving forward. I love this game, but I feel safe saying that you could buy this on Steam, and figure out in the two-hour return window whether or not it’s for you.

At the moment, Sea of Stars, but I need to get back to Dave the Driver and finish up the Among Us DLC for Vampire Survivors. And also need to finish Unmetal. And then I’ve also got this metroidvania bundle I got from Humble Bundle to finish. And Beholder 2. Jesus, my home screen is one long waiting list, and I’m still just playing other stuff.

I want to second Graveyard Keeper. I’m 99% sure I didn’t automate it as well as it intended, but it’s a lot of fun. The removal of the hard sleeping hours of Stardew is the biggest plus of the game, aside from the setting.