ramble ahead: I’d have to go with Team Fortress 2. It’s free, runs on just about anything, and looks just as good as it did 12 years ago. It’s class-based objective-oriented team shooter. There...
ramble ahead:
I’d have to go with Team Fortress 2. It’s free, runs on just about anything, and looks just as good as it did 12 years ago. It’s class-based objective-oriented team shooter. There are 9 different classes, each catering to a unique play style. All of the classes have personality without it being forced on them. The comics, short films and even they way they’re drawn give classes personality organically and are enjoyable even if you haven’t ever played the game.
The main thing I like about the game though is how much depth there is to each class. Unlike other games (cough overwatch cough) complex techniques aren’t simplified to pressing a single button. Each class has a multitiude of different ways to play/subclasses based on their loadout that take hundreds of hours to master. I’ve played the Spy class for 350 hours and I still only think I’m fine, not great. While that may seem like a bad thing, it’s actually not. You get a genuine sense of accomplishment each time you get a little better at your specific class.
And even though Valve has been ignoring it for the past year, there’s still plenty of community maps and servers to be enjoyed.
Overall, I think it’s one of the best pc shooters ever made and I think it’s a shame how it’s never talked about anymore. Even though I might not play much anymore (I don’t enjoy video games or really anything very much anymore), it still has a special place in my heart and I wished more people would try it.
Indie games are where it's at. Low time investment, self-contained, and refreshingly free of Skinner box/FOMO triggers. The only real downside is the lack of the kinds of multiplayer experiences...
Indie games are where it's at. Low time investment, self-contained, and refreshingly free of Skinner box/FOMO triggers.
The only real downside is the lack of the kinds of multiplayer experiences we had as kids with stuff like Goldeneye but that's more the fault of being old than it is the games themselves.
one good example would be a good diablo 2 successor. I had a lot of fun playing path of exile and Torchlight I and II for a while. But those are few and far between. I've been waiting for a good...
one good example would be a good diablo 2 successor. I had a lot of fun playing path of exile and Torchlight I and II for a while. But those are few and far between.
I've been waiting for a good successor for a competitive shooter like counter strike for many years. But I don't think I'll see an indie studio making a game like that.
FLARE is something I've been meaning to give a go at some point. It's an open source diablo-style ARPG. Otherwise theres Van Helsing and Grim Dawn that I've been meaning to try out. As for a CS...
FLARE is something I've been meaning to give a go at some point. It's an open source diablo-style ARPG. Otherwise theres Van Helsing and Grim Dawn that I've been meaning to try out.
As for a CS successor, I agree, I don't think an indie CS would really work because part of its success is that it has to have a huge playerbase.
CSPromod was actually VERY good. But the announcement of CS:GO killed any momentum it had gained from the huge beta release they had. More recently, classic offensive mod was a good alternative...
CSPromod was actually VERY good. But the announcement of CS:GO killed any momentum it had gained from the huge beta release they had. More recently, classic offensive mod was a good alternative too but didn't gain enough traction, and had a lack of dedicated servers.
46 years old here. The number of 10p coins I used to stuff in arcade machines, I wouldn't like to guess. And then I'd go home and spend hours on my 8 bit home computers (ZX Spectrum and C64), then...
46 years old here. The number of 10p coins I used to stuff in arcade machines, I wouldn't like to guess. And then I'd go home and spend hours on my 8 bit home computers (ZX Spectrum and C64), then I got a SNES - had a huge selection of games I played every day, and after that I got a PS1 on the day it came out and I had my PC which I would play games for hours again.
After leaving uni, I bought an N64 and an XBox which I spent less time on but still a few hours a week, mainly playing Goldeneye and a few sports games with my housemate. Then I'm not sure what happened, I stopped playing games. I suppose I wanted to spend a bit more time outside.
I've dabbled with a few mobile games; I can't stand them or their continual barrage of "buy this! buy that! spend more money!" because if you don't then you can't go any further with the game or you have to wait hours between plays.
I've occasionally had a play on some of the games my nephew plays (don't ask me what they are called - shooters though) and after being killed by some 14 year old within seconds of appearing in the game, I hand the controller back and think to myself "well, where's the fun in that?"
I've definitely moved on from video games, which is a shame because as a kid it was really my life. I've contemplated buying a Nintendo Switch but then saw the price of the games (£50 for a new release!) and realistically I don't think I would play it that often. I can't imagine when I would actually find time to sit down and play a video game. I think I will probably leave video gaming as it is for me, a very fond memory.
Yeah I used to live and breathe games but these days I don't even pay attention to E3 because I'm bored with brown shooters, annual sequels and games as a service. I largely play weird indie games...
Yeah I used to live and breathe games but these days I don't even pay attention to E3 because I'm bored with brown shooters, annual sequels and games as a service. I largely play weird indie games and at the moment a lot of the original DOOM. (Seriously there's 25 years of user-created add-ons for it, it's ridiculous)
I've said it before: Portal 2 is my favorite video game of all time — and I'm not young. It's the only puzzle game I ever loved and played to completion. The story and atmosphere are amazing, and...
I've said it before: Portal 2 is my favorite video game of all time — and I'm not young. It's the only puzzle game I ever loved and played to completion. The story and atmosphere are amazing, and the puzzles are beautiful, entirely logical and fair, without any gotchas. They require no intuition, pixel hunting or memorization. The difficulty curve is challenging in the right measure, smooth and precise to the end. Portal 2 is a perfect example of excellence in game design.
And, despite its awesome beauty, I'm pretty sure it could run on a potato...
Bit of an oddball choice for me: Split/Second It's a pretty typical arcade racing game which has the – as far as I can tell – rather common "trigger attacks on your opponents" gimmick, with it's...
It's a pretty typical arcade racing game which has the – as far as I can tell – rather common "trigger attacks on your opponents" gimmick, with it's difference being in that the attacks you trigger are actually parts of the map blowing up akin to an action movie. It's not exactly a complicated mechanic, but for a 2010 game the graphics are really good, and in general the game does a fantastic job of atmosphere in my opinion.
The biggest flaw it has is probably reuse; there's a few specific setpieces (usually related to semi-trucks) that appear over and over, and there's even a few places where half the map is reused from another. Given that the game is so focused on spectacle, it rather dims it down to see the same stuff constantly, made worse by the fact that this happens anyway over time as you keep playing maps over.
That said, it's still the game I've probably had the most fun playing out of any I own. And I say that despite all the Valve games I've played countless hours of — even TF2 doesn't beat it out for me. Just wish the sequel hadn't been cancelled; I've played this to death and really wish there was more like it, but haven't been able to find anything quite close enough.
I recently bought Doom 2016 and a very odd thing happened. It's been many years since I played games on a PC (console peasant here...) and I've played plenty of FPS games just fine but something...
I recently bought Doom 2016 and a very odd thing happened. It's been many years since I played games on a PC (console peasant here...) and I've played plenty of FPS games just fine but something about it being Doom (and it is Doom, it feels right) re-awakened old keyboard/mouse pathways in my brain. I wasn't a huge Doom player although I did enjoy it, I was mostly a Q2 guy, but I put my hours in with Doom. The weirdest thing happened, my hands, literally, started twitching in the ways they used to when playing Doom/Quake. It was so odd. Luckily the left mouse finger is still "kill" as it's on a shoulder button the dualshock, but my hand kept wanting to do mouse stuff.
Once I got over it the game is extremely enjoyable.
I've really got to get around to getting the new Doom game. I've been broke recently but that's starting to turn around so maybe it's time to pick it up. I hope to get the same weird effect...
I've really got to get around to getting the new Doom game. I've been broke recently but that's starting to turn around so maybe it's time to pick it up. I hope to get the same weird effect happening to me as what happened to you. That's kind of weird and cool at the same time!
The Witness. There's something special about it, very contemplative and beautiful. You get to learn a new puzzle language by discovery and exploration and you get all kinds of lighting flash...
The Witness. There's something special about it, very contemplative and beautiful. You get to learn a new puzzle language by discovery and exploration and you get all kinds of lighting flash moments where you realize something new.
The Witness really is astonishingly good. @culturedleftfoot left a comment in another thread calling it "possibly [...] the greatest video game of all time", which honestly I wouldn't disagree with.
The Witness really is astonishingly good. @culturedleftfoot left a comment in another thread calling it "possibly [...] the greatest video game of all time", which honestly I wouldn't disagree with.
I tried to play that game but I dislike reading guides it feels like cheating, and I just reached a point with a bunch of puzzles where I was so stuck it wasn't fun to play. I wish they'd included...
I tried to play that game but I dislike reading guides it feels like cheating, and I just reached a point with a bunch of puzzles where I was so stuck it wasn't fun to play. I wish they'd included a hint mechanic in game, I might have finished it otherwise.
Man, not self explanatory at all. There's so many metrics you could use to talk about a favorite. If you want to know the game I loved to the exclusion of all else to the point I replayed it...
Man, not self explanatory at all. There's so many metrics you could use to talk about a favorite.
If you want to know the game I loved to the exclusion of all else to the point I replayed it multiple times for hundreds of hours and it was the only game I played for that span? Final Fantasy 6 (or III, as it was known at the time).
The game with the most total hours played? Europa Universalis IV.
The game I love right now because I haven't learned its tricks or memorized its story? Void Bastards.
The game I've spent the most time and effort trying to convince my friends to play? Kingdom of Loathing.
I cannot reduce this to one game. If I purely base this on "value" (read: hours played) then I'd say Binding of Isaac at large, so that includes the OG and its sequel and their DLCs. I'd say that...
I cannot reduce this to one game.
If I purely base this on "value" (read: hours played) then I'd say Binding of Isaac at large, so that includes the OG and its sequel and their DLCs. I'd say that I roughly have a thousand hours since 2011, playing on and off again. This has been the game with the best gameplay to drone on. So much replayability with different characters and items. I guess it really pleases my lizard brain!
On a purely artistic and gameplay merit, I'd have to go with Playdead's INSIDE. It has so much power. The world is so unique and invites so much thinking on what the in-game universe even is, what it represents, what it talks about. Some parts are just straight contemplative and that's great too.
I'm going to play that again actually, it's been a while
BOI is a game for people who make games. Tight gameplay ("Mario 64 tight") Surprising every time Always fair (except sometimes right after updates) Sparse narrative that begs you to fill in the...
BOI is a game for people who make games.
Tight gameplay ("Mario 64 tight")
Surprising every time
Always fair (except sometimes right after updates)
Sparse narrative that begs you to fill in the gaps
I have to split it between portable games and PC games, because the experience of the game is so different in regards to the medium, that it can even make or break the game. On PC I have to go...
I have to split it between portable games and PC games, because the experience of the game is so different in regards to the medium, that it can even make or break the game.
On PC I have to go with the Orange Box - that's a pack of Portal, Half Life 2 + episodes and TeamFortress 2 (back when TF2 was a paid game). There had never been such a great pack of games and I doubt there ever will be, Half Life being the best shooter game. I have never seen any other games mastering the art of player movement and world interaction quite as much as most Source games made by Valve, the Half Life 2 and the episodes were the peak of modern shooter games, I think. Portal had great story, great puzzles and it has the same perfect movement balance as other Source games did. Team Fortress 2 was (and still is) one of the best online games, because it has everything - classes, supports, custom play styles, and a ton of gamemodes, some fan modes included. I doubt I would ever have as much fun with one disc.
For portable, I just have to go with Pokemon series. Ever since I was a child I had never missed a Pokemon game, and they were the reason for buying new Nintendo console every time it had been released. Pokemon games are just perfect portable games - you can do a lot of things with them - breeding, training, fighting, a ton of aftergame content, the elusive goal to collect all legendaries, the even more elusive goal of collecting all of them - they were great games, and you couldn't ever underestimate the social aspect of them, trading pokemon with my friends are some great memories. Sadly, more recent games had been dumbing down the core gameplay to the point where mindless button mashing would win you most battles in the storyline, but I hope GameFreak would do something about it in the new game.
I really wish GameFreak would make a better Pokemon game. I used to love Pokemon but the last game I got into was the Diamon/Pearl series many years ago. I think part of it is that I had a lot of...
Sadly, more recent games had been dumbing down the core gameplay to the point where mindless button mashing would win you most battles in the storyline, but I hope GameFreak would do something about it in the new game.
I really wish GameFreak would make a better Pokemon game. I used to love Pokemon but the last game I got into was the Diamon/Pearl series many years ago. I think part of it is that I had a lot of my friends to play and trade with that made the game interesting and fun, but also the games felt a bit fresh to me. Diamond and Pearl had iterations on existing Pokemon which I thought was fantastic but mega-evolutions and 'Z-moves?' just felt bad to me. Kind of like a "press button for awesome". I personally like evolutions that are obscure and kind of hard to pull off or Pokemon that require specific conditions to be met.
Also, the stories are just bad. I know they tried to switch it up with Sun/Moon recently but meh, it didn't hit the right notes for me and the overall story tone was too childish. I just want something new and fresh. I think you could get rid of levelling in the system and instead focus on natural ability+training specific skills but I don't think GameFreak is the type of company that would upend their game design to adults with fond memories of their games.
Chrono Trigger for me--it's the quintessential SNES RPG. It's relatively tight and lean in the story department, balancing a linear main story progression with an open-ended final act with...
Chrono Trigger for me--it's the quintessential SNES RPG. It's relatively tight and lean in the story department, balancing a linear main story progression with an open-ended final act with meaningful side quests. It introduced the New Game Plus mechanic, and made it worthwhile to pursue by offering alternate endings that aren't really achievable on the first playthrough. Last but not least, the music was incredibly influential on my tastes as a kid and I can still listen to the soundtrack any day of the week.
There are other RPGs of that era that have more depth in terms of story or character development, but none that pack the same 'bang for your buck' as CT.
CoD2. It is old, simple, and easy to play. When I play videogames, I want it to be a completely relaxing experience, with the smallest amount of thinking possible. CoD2 is just that, especially in...
CoD2. It is old, simple, and easy to play. When I play videogames, I want it to be a completely relaxing experience, with the smallest amount of thinking possible. CoD2 is just that, especially in its easiest mode.
I also like GTA4 for the same reason: with a nice trainer, or even without, you can just do stupid shit in it and have a laugh for yourself. Don't need your brain to do much, and nobody's actually getting hurt.
Life is Strange. Here's how the story goes: The main character, Max Caulfield, discovers she has powers to rewind time, after witnessing a murder. Over the five episodes of Life is Strange, you go...
Life is Strange. Here's how the story goes:
The main character, Max Caulfield, discovers she has powers to rewind time, after witnessing a murder. Over the five episodes of Life is Strange, you go about your life as a student at Blackwell Academy, rebuild a friendship with your ex-best friend Chloe, and investigate the mystery of what happened to a missing student, Rachel Amber.
There is something about this series that just strikes me as so real and so moving. The game sets out a cast of realistic yet flawed characters—everybody is just trying to find their place in the world, but people are shaken after Rachel's disappearance. And obviously, Max discovers she just can't rewind time without consequences.
The game is thrilling and I highly recommend it. It's similar to other "choices-matter" narrative games like The Walking Dead and Firewatch, but I feel like this is really a seminal work of the genre—it hasn't been topped by anything else out there yet. (And yet I crave more.)
The first episode of Season 1 is free, and it takes about two hours to play. If you like Episode One, I promise you will like the rest of the game.
It has to be Tetris. It's the perfect game. I've played Tetris on nearly every platform that has a screen. Some versions are better than others, but the fact remains, the beauty of the game is...
It has to be Tetris. It's the perfect game. I've played Tetris on nearly every platform that has a screen. Some versions are better than others, but the fact remains, the beauty of the game is it's simplicity.
When the Eldewrito project hit its stride and the community boomed for 15 minutes before Microsoft killed it, it was amazing. I felt like a teenager in the Halo glory days again! I'm pretty stoked...
When the Eldewrito project hit its stride and the community boomed for 15 minutes before Microsoft killed it, it was amazing. I felt like a teenager in the Halo glory days again! I'm pretty stoked for the MCC PC release to be honest..
Currently: Rimworld. Lately: Space station 13. Overall: I'd have to go with warframe and/or minecraft as those are the ones I've played the most overall.
Currently: Rimworld.
Lately: Space station 13.
Overall: I'd have to go with warframe and/or minecraft as those are the ones I've played the most overall.
I just recently came across (20 years late) Age of Empires 2 HD. My first RTS. This has been my current favorite time sink to play with my partner. We can team up to build our empires against the...
I just recently came across (20 years late) Age of Empires 2 HD. My first RTS. This has been my current favorite time sink to play with my partner. We can team up to build our empires against the AI without the pressure of pay-to-win schemes, Internet drama, etc. We just boot it up on any old laptop and play for a few hours over LAN whenever we're feeling it. There's also an open engine rewrite that some folks are working on called Open Age that looks very entertaining for hacking/cross platform purposes.
For its time: Just Cause 2 and SW Battlefront (the original) are tied as being major time sinks For Coop/splitscreen Allnighter fun: Ultimate Alliance 1 and Halo Reach (SWAT Mode 24/7) Rhythm...
For its time: Just Cause 2 and SW Battlefront (the original) are tied as being major time sinks
For Coop/splitscreen Allnighter fun: Ultimate Alliance 1 and Halo Reach (SWAT Mode 24/7)
Rhythm Game: GH3 is seriously the one game I ever tried being good at (I wasn't really but I tried)
Chill game: Minecraft
All-time favourite game: Skyrim
Second Place: Mass Effect Trilogy (ME3 being the best)
The game I've played the most has to be GTA Online. But City of Heroes will always hold my heart. But Master of Orion II was my first true love. But as a whole, the Saints Row series is nothing...
The game I've played the most has to be GTA Online. But City of Heroes will always hold my heart. But Master of Orion II was my first true love. But as a whole, the Saints Row series is nothing short of awesome.
I am not allowed to play MOO2. A year or two ago I found a zip with the game in I opened it up "just to check" and the next thing I knew it was getting light and I was still in a war with the...
I am not allowed to play MOO2. A year or two ago I found a zip with the game in I opened it up "just to check" and the next thing I knew it was getting light and I was still in a war with the Klackons. I have a baby and a job. I can't be doing that.
When I am old I shall sit on my porch smoking a pipe full of skunk and playing MOO2.
There are "time wasters" and "time killers". I find MOO2 to be a class of game I call a "time obliterator". "One more turn" becomes a lost night of sleep.
There are "time wasters" and "time killers". I find MOO2 to be a class of game I call a "time obliterator". "One more turn" becomes a lost night of sleep.
Crash Bandicoot 2. I still have my PS2 and play it to this day. The gameplay is so creative and original, especially since it's basically just a 3D platformer. I know the game so well it's not...
Crash Bandicoot 2. I still have my PS2 and play it to this day. The gameplay is so creative and original, especially since it's basically just a 3D platformer.
I know the game so well it's not even challenging, so I mostly just dust it off once in a while for the nostalgia. Ah, to go back and play that game for the first time.
It's incredibly difficult to answer this question. I like different games for different reasons. If I were to organize based on what aspect of video games I like the most, I would probably use...
It's incredibly difficult to answer this question. I like different games for different reasons.
If I were to organize based on what aspect of video games I like the most, I would probably use story, art, and music as my primary motivators. And even then it's difficult to say. If it were on pure impact, the answer would be Nier. That game is emotionally damaging. I honestly still can't bring myself to play again.
But if we base it on memorability and overall resonance, my answer is D2. No, not the D2 you are thinking about. It came to me at a bad period of time and gave me Kimberly. To this day, I have not come across a character I identify with more. You know how everyone raves about Silent Hill 2 and it's writing and psychological horror? D2 did it first, and it did it better. It's also rife with social commentary, including a lot of ecological themes. At the end it shows you a bunch of depressing ecological statistics, and it's so well presented that it moved my younger self to tears.
Chrono Cross is a close #2. It has ecological themes as well, though not in a way that could make me cry. But honestly I don't want to go into detail on that here again.
Age of Empires 2. Me and a bunch of childhood friends get together on weekends and have a LAN party. Have been doing so for 4+ years now. It's surprising, the way the game has actually been rising...
Age of Empires 2.
Me and a bunch of childhood friends get together on weekends and have a LAN party. Have been doing so for 4+ years now. It's surprising, the way the game has actually been rising in popularity again. It's 20+ years old.
Wow, neither of my favorites mentioned yet. #1 Skyrim, well-modded (shout-out for Ultimate Skyrim, a lovingly curated, massive 300+ mod collection, built up around Requiem). #2 Kerbal Space...
Wow, neither of my favorites mentioned yet.
#1 Skyrim, well-modded (shout-out for Ultimate Skyrim, a lovingly curated, massive 300+ mod collection, built up around Requiem).
#2 Kerbal Space Program, again well-modded to simulate our actual Earth-Sol system and physics, primarily with the Real Solar System mod collection, perhaps augmented with Principia when I'm feeling extra masochistic.
All told, probably Samurai Shodown IV. The decline of the series (and SNK on the whole) really killed me... I'm still not quite sure what to think of the new Samurai Shodown coming out this month.
All told, probably Samurai Shodown IV. The decline of the series (and SNK on the whole) really killed me... I'm still not quite sure what to think of the new Samurai Shodown coming out this month.
Collectively: Harvest Moon. I don't even want to know how many hours of my life have been put into all the harvest moon (+harvest moon type, I'm looking at you, 300 hours of stardew valley!)...
Collectively: Harvest Moon.
I don't even want to know how many hours of my life have been put into all the harvest moon (+harvest moon type, I'm looking at you, 300 hours of stardew valley!) games. They're very nice little times - you can play for 10 minutes, or you can play for 10 hours.
I also really really liked the Dragon Age games. I thought their story and world building was fascinating - I was that nerd who read all the text in every book you picked up!
ramble ahead:
I’d have to go with Team Fortress 2. It’s free, runs on just about anything, and looks just as good as it did 12 years ago. It’s class-based objective-oriented team shooter. There are 9 different classes, each catering to a unique play style. All of the classes have personality without it being forced on them. The comics, short films and even they way they’re drawn give classes personality organically and are enjoyable even if you haven’t ever played the game.
The main thing I like about the game though is how much depth there is to each class. Unlike other games (cough overwatch cough) complex techniques aren’t simplified to pressing a single button. Each class has a multitiude of different ways to play/subclasses based on their loadout that take hundreds of hours to master. I’ve played the Spy class for 350 hours and I still only think I’m fine, not great. While that may seem like a bad thing, it’s actually not. You get a genuine sense of accomplishment each time you get a little better at your specific class.
And even though Valve has been ignoring it for the past year, there’s still plenty of community maps and servers to be enjoyed.
Overall, I think it’s one of the best pc shooters ever made and I think it’s a shame how it’s never talked about anymore. Even though I might not play much anymore (I don’t enjoy video games or really anything very much anymore), it still has a special place in my heart and I wished more people would try it.
Damn, are you okay?
yeah. thanks for asking
I'm in the same boat
with the way the industry is nowadays its pretty normal I think for older gamers.
Indie games are where it's at. Low time investment, self-contained, and refreshingly free of Skinner box/FOMO triggers.
The only real downside is the lack of the kinds of multiplayer experiences we had as kids with stuff like Goldeneye but that's more the fault of being old than it is the games themselves.
indie studios arent releasing the genre of games that I've been interested in
What are you interested in?
one good example would be a good diablo 2 successor. I had a lot of fun playing path of exile and Torchlight I and II for a while. But those are few and far between.
I've been waiting for a good successor for a competitive shooter like counter strike for many years. But I don't think I'll see an indie studio making a game like that.
FLARE is something I've been meaning to give a go at some point. It's an open source diablo-style ARPG. Otherwise theres Van Helsing and Grim Dawn that I've been meaning to try out.
As for a CS successor, I agree, I don't think an indie CS would really work because part of its success is that it has to have a huge playerbase.
CSPromod was actually VERY good. But the announcement of CS:GO killed any momentum it had gained from the huge beta release they had. More recently, classic offensive mod was a good alternative too but didn't gain enough traction, and had a lack of dedicated servers.
That's a pretty sweeping statement
46 years old here. The number of 10p coins I used to stuff in arcade machines, I wouldn't like to guess. And then I'd go home and spend hours on my 8 bit home computers (ZX Spectrum and C64), then I got a SNES - had a huge selection of games I played every day, and after that I got a PS1 on the day it came out and I had my PC which I would play games for hours again.
After leaving uni, I bought an N64 and an XBox which I spent less time on but still a few hours a week, mainly playing Goldeneye and a few sports games with my housemate. Then I'm not sure what happened, I stopped playing games. I suppose I wanted to spend a bit more time outside.
I've dabbled with a few mobile games; I can't stand them or their continual barrage of "buy this! buy that! spend more money!" because if you don't then you can't go any further with the game or you have to wait hours between plays.
I've occasionally had a play on some of the games my nephew plays (don't ask me what they are called - shooters though) and after being killed by some 14 year old within seconds of appearing in the game, I hand the controller back and think to myself "well, where's the fun in that?"
I've definitely moved on from video games, which is a shame because as a kid it was really my life. I've contemplated buying a Nintendo Switch but then saw the price of the games (£50 for a new release!) and realistically I don't think I would play it that often. I can't imagine when I would actually find time to sit down and play a video game. I think I will probably leave video gaming as it is for me, a very fond memory.
Yeah I used to live and breathe games but these days I don't even pay attention to E3 because I'm bored with brown shooters, annual sequels and games as a service. I largely play weird indie games and at the moment a lot of the original DOOM. (Seriously there's 25 years of user-created add-ons for it, it's ridiculous)
I've said it before: Portal 2 is my favorite video game of all time — and I'm not young. It's the only puzzle game I ever loved and played to completion. The story and atmosphere are amazing, and the puzzles are beautiful, entirely logical and fair, without any gotchas. They require no intuition, pixel hunting or memorization. The difficulty curve is challenging in the right measure, smooth and precise to the end. Portal 2 is a perfect example of excellence in game design.
And, despite its awesome beauty, I'm pretty sure it could run on a potato...
Bit of an oddball choice for me: Split/Second
It's a pretty typical arcade racing game which has the – as far as I can tell – rather common "trigger attacks on your opponents" gimmick, with it's difference being in that the attacks you trigger are actually parts of the map blowing up akin to an action movie. It's not exactly a complicated mechanic, but for a 2010 game the graphics are really good, and in general the game does a fantastic job of atmosphere in my opinion.
The biggest flaw it has is probably reuse; there's a few specific setpieces (usually related to semi-trucks) that appear over and over, and there's even a few places where half the map is reused from another. Given that the game is so focused on spectacle, it rather dims it down to see the same stuff constantly, made worse by the fact that this happens anyway over time as you keep playing maps over.
That said, it's still the game I've probably had the most fun playing out of any I own. And I say that despite all the Valve games I've played countless hours of — even TF2 doesn't beat it out for me. Just wish the sequel hadn't been cancelled; I've played this to death and really wish there was more like it, but haven't been able to find anything quite close enough.
Doom. It blew my mind in '94 and it is still very fun.
there's a new map set out for it, https://www.romerogames.ie/si6il
If you or anyone else wants to revisit doom i deeply recommend brutal doom.
I played it coop with a friend a couple of years ago and we had a blast!
You should try Project Brutality, it's like Brutal Doom on steroids! There's a heap of new weapons and enemies. YouTube video
I recently bought Doom 2016 and a very odd thing happened. It's been many years since I played games on a PC (console peasant here...) and I've played plenty of FPS games just fine but something about it being Doom (and it is Doom, it feels right) re-awakened old keyboard/mouse pathways in my brain. I wasn't a huge Doom player although I did enjoy it, I was mostly a Q2 guy, but I put my hours in with Doom. The weirdest thing happened, my hands, literally, started twitching in the ways they used to when playing Doom/Quake. It was so odd. Luckily the left mouse finger is still "kill" as it's on a shoulder button the dualshock, but my hand kept wanting to do mouse stuff.
Once I got over it the game is extremely enjoyable.
I've really got to get around to getting the new Doom game. I've been broke recently but that's starting to turn around so maybe it's time to pick it up. I hope to get the same weird effect happening to me as what happened to you. That's kind of weird and cool at the same time!
You won't regret it. It's a fantastic game.
The Witness. There's something special about it, very contemplative and beautiful. You get to learn a new puzzle language by discovery and exploration and you get all kinds of lighting flash moments where you realize something new.
The Witness really is astonishingly good. @culturedleftfoot left a comment in another thread calling it "possibly [...] the greatest video game of all time", which honestly I wouldn't disagree with.
I tried to play that game but I dislike reading guides it feels like cheating, and I just reached a point with a bunch of puzzles where I was so stuck it wasn't fun to play. I wish they'd included a hint mechanic in game, I might have finished it otherwise.
Man, not self explanatory at all. There's so many metrics you could use to talk about a favorite.
If you want to know the game I loved to the exclusion of all else to the point I replayed it multiple times for hundreds of hours and it was the only game I played for that span? Final Fantasy 6 (or III, as it was known at the time).
The game with the most total hours played? Europa Universalis IV.
The game I love right now because I haven't learned its tricks or memorized its story? Void Bastards.
The game I've spent the most time and effort trying to convince my friends to play? Kingdom of Loathing.
I cannot reduce this to one game.
If I purely base this on "value" (read: hours played) then I'd say Binding of Isaac at large, so that includes the OG and its sequel and their DLCs. I'd say that I roughly have a thousand hours since 2011, playing on and off again. This has been the game with the best gameplay to drone on. So much replayability with different characters and items. I guess it really pleases my lizard brain!
On a purely artistic and gameplay merit, I'd have to go with Playdead's INSIDE. It has so much power. The world is so unique and invites so much thinking on what the in-game universe even is, what it represents, what it talks about. Some parts are just straight contemplative and that's great too.
I'm going to play that again actually, it's been a while
BOI is a game for people who make games.
I have to split it between portable games and PC games, because the experience of the game is so different in regards to the medium, that it can even make or break the game.
On PC I have to go with the Orange Box - that's a pack of Portal, Half Life 2 + episodes and TeamFortress 2 (back when TF2 was a paid game). There had never been such a great pack of games and I doubt there ever will be, Half Life being the best shooter game. I have never seen any other games mastering the art of player movement and world interaction quite as much as most Source games made by Valve, the Half Life 2 and the episodes were the peak of modern shooter games, I think. Portal had great story, great puzzles and it has the same perfect movement balance as other Source games did. Team Fortress 2 was (and still is) one of the best online games, because it has everything - classes, supports, custom play styles, and a ton of gamemodes, some fan modes included. I doubt I would ever have as much fun with one disc.
For portable, I just have to go with Pokemon series. Ever since I was a child I had never missed a Pokemon game, and they were the reason for buying new Nintendo console every time it had been released. Pokemon games are just perfect portable games - you can do a lot of things with them - breeding, training, fighting, a ton of aftergame content, the elusive goal to collect all legendaries, the even more elusive goal of collecting all of them - they were great games, and you couldn't ever underestimate the social aspect of them, trading pokemon with my friends are some great memories. Sadly, more recent games had been dumbing down the core gameplay to the point where mindless button mashing would win you most battles in the storyline, but I hope GameFreak would do something about it in the new game.
I really wish GameFreak would make a better Pokemon game. I used to love Pokemon but the last game I got into was the Diamon/Pearl series many years ago. I think part of it is that I had a lot of my friends to play and trade with that made the game interesting and fun, but also the games felt a bit fresh to me. Diamond and Pearl had iterations on existing Pokemon which I thought was fantastic but mega-evolutions and 'Z-moves?' just felt bad to me. Kind of like a "press button for awesome". I personally like evolutions that are obscure and kind of hard to pull off or Pokemon that require specific conditions to be met.
Also, the stories are just bad. I know they tried to switch it up with Sun/Moon recently but meh, it didn't hit the right notes for me and the overall story tone was too childish. I just want something new and fresh. I think you could get rid of levelling in the system and instead focus on natural ability+training specific skills but I don't think GameFreak is the type of company that would upend their game design to adults with fond memories of their games.
Pokemon sword and shield looks awesome, really looking forward to that.
Chrono Trigger for me--it's the quintessential SNES RPG. It's relatively tight and lean in the story department, balancing a linear main story progression with an open-ended final act with meaningful side quests. It introduced the New Game Plus mechanic, and made it worthwhile to pursue by offering alternate endings that aren't really achievable on the first playthrough. Last but not least, the music was incredibly influential on my tastes as a kid and I can still listen to the soundtrack any day of the week.
There are other RPGs of that era that have more depth in terms of story or character development, but none that pack the same 'bang for your buck' as CT.
I played this for the first time recently and it was an amazing experience. Such a great game.
CoD2. It is old, simple, and easy to play. When I play videogames, I want it to be a completely relaxing experience, with the smallest amount of thinking possible. CoD2 is just that, especially in its easiest mode.
I also like GTA4 for the same reason: with a nice trainer, or even without, you can just do stupid shit in it and have a laugh for yourself. Don't need your brain to do much, and nobody's actually getting hurt.
Life is Strange. Here's how the story goes:
The main character, Max Caulfield, discovers she has powers to rewind time, after witnessing a murder. Over the five episodes of Life is Strange, you go about your life as a student at Blackwell Academy, rebuild a friendship with your ex-best friend Chloe, and investigate the mystery of what happened to a missing student, Rachel Amber.
There is something about this series that just strikes me as so real and so moving. The game sets out a cast of realistic yet flawed characters—everybody is just trying to find their place in the world, but people are shaken after Rachel's disappearance. And obviously, Max discovers she just can't rewind time without consequences.
The game is thrilling and I highly recommend it. It's similar to other "choices-matter" narrative games like The Walking Dead and Firewatch, but I feel like this is really a seminal work of the genre—it hasn't been topped by anything else out there yet. (And yet I crave more.)
The first episode of Season 1 is free, and it takes about two hours to play. If you like Episode One, I promise you will like the rest of the game.
It has to be Tetris. It's the perfect game. I've played Tetris on nearly every platform that has a screen. Some versions are better than others, but the fact remains, the beauty of the game is it's simplicity.
Halo 2 still takes my top spot. I don’t even play halo anymore but I’ll never forget those halo 2 days.
When the Eldewrito project hit its stride and the community boomed for 15 minutes before Microsoft killed it, it was amazing. I felt like a teenager in the Halo glory days again! I'm pretty stoked for the MCC PC release to be honest..
Currently: Rimworld.
Lately: Space station 13.
Overall: I'd have to go with warframe and/or minecraft as those are the ones I've played the most overall.
I just recently came across (20 years late) Age of Empires 2 HD. My first RTS. This has been my current favorite time sink to play with my partner. We can team up to build our empires against the AI without the pressure of pay-to-win schemes, Internet drama, etc. We just boot it up on any old laptop and play for a few hours over LAN whenever we're feeling it. There's also an open engine rewrite that some folks are working on called Open Age that looks very entertaining for hacking/cross platform purposes.
Time-wise "favorite" is TF2 and Overwatch. General preference would be Horizon Zero Dawn, Read Dead 2, Breath of the Wild.
For its time: Just Cause 2 and SW Battlefront (the original) are tied as being major time sinks
For Coop/splitscreen Allnighter fun: Ultimate Alliance 1 and Halo Reach (SWAT Mode 24/7)
Rhythm Game: GH3 is seriously the one game I ever tried being good at (I wasn't really but I tried)
Chill game: Minecraft
All-time favourite game: Skyrim
Second Place: Mass Effect Trilogy (ME3 being the best)
Gotta go old school and say the first Phantasy Star. Changed my life!
The game I've played the most has to be GTA Online. But City of Heroes will always hold my heart. But Master of Orion II was my first true love. But as a whole, the Saints Row series is nothing short of awesome.
I am not allowed to play MOO2. A year or two ago I found a zip with the game in I opened it up "just to check" and the next thing I knew it was getting light and I was still in a war with the Klackons. I have a baby and a job. I can't be doing that.
When I am old I shall sit on my porch smoking a pipe full of skunk and playing MOO2.
There are "time wasters" and "time killers". I find MOO2 to be a class of game I call a "time obliterator". "One more turn" becomes a lost night of sleep.
Crash Bandicoot 2. I still have my PS2 and play it to this day. The gameplay is so creative and original, especially since it's basically just a 3D platformer.
I know the game so well it's not even challenging, so I mostly just dust it off once in a while for the nostalgia. Ah, to go back and play that game for the first time.
It's incredibly difficult to answer this question. I like different games for different reasons.
If I were to organize based on what aspect of video games I like the most, I would probably use story, art, and music as my primary motivators. And even then it's difficult to say. If it were on pure impact, the answer would be Nier. That game is emotionally damaging. I honestly still can't bring myself to play again.
But if we base it on memorability and overall resonance, my answer is D2. No, not the D2 you are thinking about. It came to me at a bad period of time and gave me Kimberly. To this day, I have not come across a character I identify with more. You know how everyone raves about Silent Hill 2 and it's writing and psychological horror? D2 did it first, and it did it better. It's also rife with social commentary, including a lot of ecological themes. At the end it shows you a bunch of depressing ecological statistics, and it's so well presented that it moved my younger self to tears.
Chrono Cross is a close #2. It has ecological themes as well, though not in a way that could make me cry. But honestly I don't want to go into detail on that here again.
Age of Empires 2.
Me and a bunch of childhood friends get together on weekends and have a LAN party. Have been doing so for 4+ years now. It's surprising, the way the game has actually been rising in popularity again. It's 20+ years old.
Wow, neither of my favorites mentioned yet.
#1 Skyrim, well-modded (shout-out for Ultimate Skyrim, a lovingly curated, massive 300+ mod collection, built up around Requiem).
#2 Kerbal Space Program, again well-modded to simulate our actual Earth-Sol system and physics, primarily with the Real Solar System mod collection, perhaps augmented with Principia when I'm feeling extra masochistic.
All told, probably Samurai Shodown IV. The decline of the series (and SNK on the whole) really killed me... I'm still not quite sure what to think of the new Samurai Shodown coming out this month.
Collectively: Harvest Moon.
I don't even want to know how many hours of my life have been put into all the harvest moon (+harvest moon type, I'm looking at you, 300 hours of stardew valley!) games. They're very nice little times - you can play for 10 minutes, or you can play for 10 hours.
I also really really liked the Dragon Age games. I thought their story and world building was fascinating - I was that nerd who read all the text in every book you picked up!
Gears of War 2, up until Title Update 3 ruined it.
It would be Destiny if I still had any friends that played it.
Since I don't, I suppose it's Smite.