I like to play games. So I guess I'm a "gamer"? But: I'm not into arena shooters, MMORPMRPORG grinders, anything with endless cutscenes of exposition and absolutely nothing that needs a "pass" to play... so where's my games? I feel like there's nothing for casual-but-not-candy-crush-or-clash-of-clans players like me out there.

I want something that takes me back to the days of Roller Coaster Tycoon, Sim City 2000 or more recently, Stardew that's not going to make my blood boil or nickel-and-dime me to progress. That doesn't mean it needs to be cute or easy, but more... meditative? Or goofy?

Given the crowd here I figured you lot would probably have some good recommendations. So: fire away!

Welcome to the discussion thread for the BLAST Premier Spring Final 2023, the last Big Event before the summer break. The event will feature eight of the world’s best CS:GO teams competing for a $425,000 prize pool and a spot at the BLAST Premier World Final 2023. The event will take place at the Entertainment & Sports Arena in Washington, D.C., from June 7-11.

The teams attending the event are:

• Heroic (From Spring Groups)
• G2 Esports (From Spring Groups)
• FaZe Clan (From Spring Groups)
• Natus Vincere (From Spring Groups)
• Vitality (From Spring Groups)
• Astralis (From Spring Groups)
• Cloud9 (From Spring Showdown – EU)
• Imperial (From Spring Showdown – NA)

The event will start with two double-elimination GSL groups, followed by a single-elimination playoff bracket. All matches will be best-of-three.

The event will also mark the return of Vitality to LAN for the first time since their Major triumph in Paris, where they won without dropping a single map. They will face Imperial in their opening match, who might be playing their last event with Gabriel “FalleN” Toledo as rumors of his move to FURIA are rampant.

Other interesting matchups include G2 vs Cloud9, who both had disappointing runs at IEM Dallas and the Major cycle, and Heroic vs Astralis, who will clash for the Danish supremacy.

You can follow the event on BLAST.tv, YouTube, or Twitch. The schedule and results can be found on HLTV or Liquipedia.

This is a bit of a test thread. I will try to post a comment for each match, under which you can share your thoughts and comments about each individual game. As such, it may be preferable to sort the thread by new, in order to see the most recent match-ups. Also, in case I miss any match feel free to post the results yourself!

Do you prefer kinetic VNs (where there are no choices, just story), choices that slightly alter the dialogue but don't impact the story much, or choices that result in new scenes/routes/endings?

Personally, I'm a fan of having choices in the game and having them impact the narrative -- either by unlocking a new route, a special scene with a character, or getting an alternative ending. Stein's;Gate was a lot of fun for me.

I do enjoy a good kinetic novel when I just want to listen to music and read, though. Queen Beast is a great recent example -- go check it out!

Playing World of Warcraft Classic WOLTK, I realize that dungeon instances are the best part of the game for me. I love the holy trinity, and how everyone has a specific role to play and contribute to the group. But the thing is, WoW is just not that hard. As a level 30 healer, I'm going through the motions and being complimented on my heals, but I could do it with very-low effort and only partially awake. And according to other players, that won't change until I get to raiding, and maybe not even then. PvP is a possibility, but I'd like to explore games that focus on the matches without all else that comes with an MMO.

The problem is, when I think of the kind of equivalent outside the MMORPG sphere, MOBAs are what first come to mind. But LoL, Dota, etc, are not easy games for an older gentleman to pick up. I don't wanna play anything that relies on quick reflexes because I simply have none. And a game like Starcraft, on the competitive level, also relies on high APM as far as I know.

So maybe this game doesn't exist, but I'd love to play something that allows me to be in a group with a defined role that requires some degree of coordination (and a social aspect) but is neither an FPS nor a stressful high-octane game for people in their 20s with a lot of brain energy to burn.

I've been enjoying Legends of Runeterra for the last couple of years. It's a collectible card game with really nice art and voice work. I'm not a very competitive person, but I put up with the deckbuilding and competitive bits because I enjoyed the gameplay.

About a year ago Riot added a new PvE mode where instead of playing against humans, you play against increasingly difficult AI decks. Every few wins you get your choice of 3 random passive abilities, some of which can dramatically increase the power of your deck for the rest of the run--kind of a roguelike twist on the CCG formula. This has completely spoiled me--I enjoy it far more than LoR's base gameplay. Unfortunately, despite the popularity of the new mode, Riot made the inexplicable decision to give it only token support, focusing instead on PvP.

I've mostly run out of content for the new game mode, and I'm wondering if another game has something that will scratch the same itch. I'm looking for PvE games with deep gameplay and good production values that aren't too fast-paced or actiony. Bonus points if the game gets new content occasionally. Extra bonus points if it has a good story. Any of y'all have a favorite?

I kind of want to start this discussion because something I’ve always wanted to do is make a video game, even if it’s just a small indie platformer. I’ve even gone so far as to plan out an entire game universe timeline with fleshed out characters and factions, but I have no point of reference on where to start. So, how do you start this process and where are some resources to learn?

This type of game seems to be the new hotness right now, and there are now enough that I feel like they’ll need their own genre identifier.

Is there a broadly accepted one? If so, is it good?

And, if not, what do you think games of that type should be called?

I’ve see a few suggestions here and there, but none of them have felt right to me. I’m interested in almost theorycrafting the optimal genre identifier (in the vein of “procedural death labyrinth”). What are the unifying traits of games of these types, how do we best identify them without simply stringing together other genres (e.g. “reverse bullet hell idle action roguelike”), and what can we use that has “stickiness” as a term?

Because of my need for content, and HBO's The Last of Us releasing only an episode per week, I decided to watch a play through of TLoU 2. I played through TLoU 1 years ago but didn't want to buy a whole console just for one game.

Honestly I can't understand the amount of hate I've heard in online discussions. Part 2 drags on at times but overall I'm impressed with the narrative. Part 1 was a hard act to follow and part 2 did better than I'd expect for a sequel. I saw that Tildes had a discussion or two about this game around when it came out. Now that it's been a few years, how do you all feel? And related - how do you think the show will handle the story in season 2?

What were your highlights for the year? What were the best things you played? What surprised you? What let you down?

Reflect back on the year and talk about anything and everything related to your gaming experiences in 2022. You do NOT have to limit it to 2022 releases -- anything you played this year counts.

Meta note: Yes, I know this is still a tad on the early side, but I'm trying to space these posts out between groups so that they don't step on each others' toes. I also plan to post this to ~books, ~movies, ~television. I'm not active in ~anime, so if someone wants to take up the mantle for that group (or any others you feel need a Year in Review post), go for it!

Hi, lately I've been thinking a bunch about Phantom Crash, which I played on an XBox. It was a mecha battle arena game. It had two main modes (three if you count skipping through interminable conversations with NPCs). First, you'd take your mech into an arena and blow people up. Then you'd go to your garage, spending your winnings on upgrading your mech.

The degree of customization you could achieve was striking. There were big options like wheels / legs / hover platform, and a variety of energy / mass / missile weapons. You could get different aim assist chips that had meaningfully different characteristics. You could tune almost any piece of equipment to be lighter or heavier, and a heavier gun really felt more powerful in the arena.

TBH the actual combat was only alright, but we loved the game anyway.

Are there any other games out there that have this kind of feedback loop? Playable today is best, but I'd also go down an internet archaeology hole.

Asking about games of any kind.

Do you enjoy something a lot of people seem to despise? Do you dislike some aspect of gameplay everyone cherishes? What beloved games do you find utterly boring? What games and mechanics are underestimated in our view? In what way games nowadays are worse than before? Conversely, do you think people look at the past with rose-tinted glasses?

I wanna know!

Maybe you guys can help me out since I found a lot of games that are kinda like this but not quite.

It doesn't need to be a full-blown simulation, but it needs to be convincing.

What I want is a game that puts me inside a submarine, looking at screens full of radar and sensor information, and letting me control the sub in a realistic manner, only with the information provided in the control room. It's okay if the game jumps to an external view just to show the ultimate consequence of conflict, but mostly, I should be in the sub looking at screens.

Is there such a game?

Ideally, I play on the Xbox. My laptop is a potato, so it's only good for very old or otherwise lightweight games (technically speaking, this could easily be a command line game... like naval htop). Other kinds of naval simulation are good for this thread.

Thanks!

I was playing Mario Kart 8 Deluxe with my kid the other day and it was a blast. Nintendo have really nailed this game, especially in the balance of accessible enough for beginners to have fun but hard enough for people to have a challenge too.

My other favourite game (although I haven't played it for a while) is Sega Rally Championship on Sega Saturn. This game has 4 tracks (one of which needs to be unlocked) and 3 cars (and again, one of these needs to be unlocked). The tiny number of cars and tracks means that you get to do the same corners over and over. This might sound tedious, but when you hit the corner just right you know it. You can get a sense of mastery over it. I've spent many hours playing games in the Gran Turismo series, and I really enjoy them, but fair play some of the tracks and cars are just shovelled into the game and you don't spend much time with them

In the first Gran Turismo the licensing tests were properly hard. They weren't messing around. Getting bronze requires people to read the manual and understand what the point of the test is. Getting all gold is an actual challenge for experienced players. I feel like the tests (at least, the bronze levels) got easier in later games. The UK soundtrack was small but pretty good.

My final mention is the Burnout series. I loved the crash junctions. I'm not sure the open world of Paradise was fun - it meant spending a lot of time driving across a map to get to the start line of various events. I feel the same way about many games - I'd rather just have a menu of levels and what I need to do to complete them (GoldenEye, SNES PilotWings, BlastCorps are all good examples) than have this stuff obscured by the open world. Burnout on the Nintendo DS was a genuinely awful game. I think Burnout Dominator was my favourite in the series.

So, what do driving games get right? What do they miss? What interesting game mechanics do you enjoy?

There were a few years when RTS was a popular genre with games like Total Annihilation, Age of Empires, Command and Conquer, and Starcraft being very popular examples.

But these games have mostly died out, and I was wondering if maybe I'm just not aware of modern RTS variants, or if there are good reasons why these games died off.

Like, are Tower Defence games a form of RTS?

Are there any RTS games where teams play against each other, so 2v2 rather than 1v1?