Oh... It's you. It's been a long time. How have you been?
You might have noticed this is a little late, sorry. I just got busy ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Because of the sizeable time gap between this and the last post, I will be updating the times on the last post to reflect my new play times.
Just Cause 2: Multiplayer (488 Hours)
If you don't already know, I used to be a Moderator for the Nerd³ Servers' Just Cause 2: Multiplayer server. This is actually how I got to be in the position I am at Nerd³, so without this game, my life would likely be completely different. I have a lot of nostalgia for this game as I used to while away the hours on this server hanging out with the dozens of friends I made there, life was good.
Nowadays the mod has sadly faded into obscurity as it has become old, and newer Just Cause games have taken to the stage. Most old servers either shut down (as was the case with the Nerd³ Server) or have just been abandoned by the players. Back in the day, there could have been hundreds of players on one server at one time, but now the total player base is a tiny fraction of what it was, rendering the whole Multiplayer shtick moot.
If you have the time, I urge you to watch some old videos from when this mod was in its prime.
Space Engineers (309 Hours)
I love space games, if that wasn't already apparent from my hours in Elite Dangerous. Space Engineers combines space games with a realistic (ish) physics engine and Minecraft-style survival; specifically akin to modpacks such as Tekkit. You can build huge, intricately detailed spacecrafts with fully functional interiors, stocked with working processing plants and fly them around the 3 planets. Or you can just stick a bunch of cubes together in creative mode and bomb the hell out of your friends, the choice is yours.
The magic of Space Engineers comes from the variety of gameplay on offer. As I mentioned, it features both singleplayer and multiplayer modes, as well as survival, creative and scenario options. In survival you start on a planet and must manually mine, refine and process minerals to build your exact replica of Red Dwarf. In creative however, you can fly infinitely, have infinite building materials and never die; the sky space? is the limit. You can also team up with your friends to work together on your survival endeavours or have a creative space battle! Needless to say, it has satisfied a lot of my needs from a game very well.
Factorio (200 Hours)
The only reason I don't have more hours in this game is because I have literally banned myself from playing it. I got so addicted that I started losing sleep, missing appointments etc because of it. Sadly, it looks like Satisfactory might be next to suck me in. There's something about striving for optimum efficiency that just keeps me hooked for hours at a time. You start out simple and then you just want to tweak your iron production ratios and whoops it's 6am the next day.
Now I know some people might see the flavour image below and whine that I'm not very good at the game, so here's a couple reasons for you. 1) I loaded up a random save to get the screenshot. 2) I'm not good at the game. You don't need to be good to have fun! Seriously, half my factories look like spaghetti after a few hours, but that doesn't matter to me. So long as it gets the job done and is doing it efficiently, I'll be happy. Now that I think about it, that's how I write code too...
If you haven't checked out any of the games listed in this post or Part 1, then I strongly urge you to look up some gameplay of them to see if they're your kind of thing! But be warned, you may lose many hours like I did if they are. In which case, sorry.