So, I was never one to enjoy writing these ‘year in review’ type affairs, but at the same time with so much going on in 2019 as both Slow and not as Slow; what better way to start 2020 than with a recap.
The thing is, 2019 was such a great year for games, and following EGX Rezzed in March I was full of new games to play and wanted to share them with you. Issues with the day job were quick to manifest though and it meant I had to take time off streaming to find a new job, fight off what could have become a deep depression, and do as much freelance work as I could to pay the bills.
Full-time streaming would have never paid the bills.
but I am now retraining in my full time work, remaining in the vibrant industry that I love, with a new company. If you have seen the right videos on the Gaming with SlowPsycho YouTube channel, you know what I am doing now….
So – onto my Games from 2019
The Biggie – Transport Fever 2
The big games, that if you have kept up through December has kicked me into gaming again, is Transport Fever 2. I was disappointed at not getting into the Beta, but there are current 30 hours of game-play across two Freeplay maps from me, mostly on YouTube.
I am not utterly convinced by some of the changes from the first incarnation of Transport Fever, but others are great. I think that the move to one commercial and one industrial product per town is a great idea, but I wonder if it could be better. Now if there was a demand in every town for food and fuel and then one (or two) others, maybe add a few more commodities to the list as time progresses, then having to largely ship everything over large distances would be negated in the early game for some maps.
What I do like though is the fact that it is now harder to produce some goods, and so it should be. For those that have not played Transport Fever 1 or 2 yet, let me explain.
in Transport Fever 1, to create fuel, you would need to take a unit of Crude Oil from an Oil Well to a Fuel Refinary and then take the Fuel to the town.
In Transport Fever 2, you need to take two units of Crude Oil to an Oil Refinary, to create one unit of Oil, to take to the Fuel Refinery, to make one unit of fuel to take to one of the town’s that now accepts it.
So I am still trying to get used to the new mechanics of Transport Fever 2, but still enjoying the game that got me streaming again.
The Indie – Overcrowd: A Commute ’em Up
A game that I have not played in a month or two, but must have another go since they have had a major update.
The idea of Overcrowd, from Square Play Games, is that you take charge of a station on the Lubdon Town Metro and you need to make a success of it. Well…. you need to successfully complete the objectives anyway, passenger comfort is not necessarily your top priority.
What I love about Overcrowd: A Commute ’em Up is that it looks deceptively simple. In the first 90 hours I streamed I could not get past level 4 of 5 on hard mode, however many times I tried. Once the bins overflow and the staff go on strike it is a swift downward spiral and not long until customer satisfaction is low enough to warrant intervention from Grant Schapps and the Department for Transport.
There has, as I said just bow, been a big update though, including new features and amenities, new challenges, and I have to try the hideously fiendish Commute of the Day again, which is apparently harder than the hardest campaign level on Hard….
Spoiler: it is
Other Notable Games Mentions
You know that I have to mention how much I played both Transport Fever 1 and, to a lessor extent, Cities:Skylines over the course of 2019. I also, haphazardly, also uploaded a few Train Simulator 2020 content to YouTube….. not as much as I would, but now as I drive the real thing it’s a bit like a busmans holiday.
Soviet Republic: Workers & Resources is another game that I enjoyed over the last year, although I only managed to play double digit hours on it. I fell into the trap of starting a map with an existing population, that screwed my mind!
Other games that I wanted to get into, but everything that took over my life kind of prevented, we’re games like Anno 1800 from Ubisoft, Surviving Mars with Green Cities and the campaign mode of They Are Billions. There were so many good games and so much to stop me playing them in 2019.
Looking Forward to 2020
Yeah. I’m sorry…. I bought Train Sim World in Green Man Gaming’s Winter Sale (it was £12) – that means you will get refreshed old content from the Great Western Mainline until I can afford to buy the Southern East Coastway DLC.
I ALSO have some game I have to visit in early 2020; 10 Miles to Safety is one which I caught at EGX and bought in Early Access, more Transport Fever 2 streams are a must and I must restart my Overcrowd: A Commute ’em Up campaign to account for the new content. Some games that I am expecting to see in 2020 also include Honey, I Joined a Cult from Sole Survivor Games And more.
EGX Rezzed
EGX Rezzed is coming up in March as well and I have the entire week off so I may even buy myself a SuperPass and a couple of nights in a hotel. I want to do all three days primarily because I almost always don’t go on the one day that there is an excellent careers talk or a game announcement.
If you want to support my visit to Tobacco Dock then please feel free to either donate via my StreamLabs (during a stream for extra Kudos, Paypal, or by subscribing to my Twitch channel.
But Forward
Please join me in 2020 across my Twitch and YouTube channels as we play games together.