Residentes Evil. The camera fixed angles were confusing and sometimes I got caught between two different angles in a small space to maneuver.
Thief: The Dark Project
My brother had acquired a pirated copy for me. But the videos and dialogues had been stripped out to save space. He was gushing about how your footsteps would make different sounds on different floor types, but I already knew that from Jedi Knight. So I really didn’t get what the fuzz was about.
Don’t know how much time later I got a full copy and completely fell in love. It’s one of my all time favourite games. The atmosphere is the best. And the different footstep sounds actually serve a gameplay purpose.
Nice. Definitely check out the Hitman series and the Dishonored series if you love stealth
Dwarf fortress I was always into it conceptually and think that all the under the hood simulation stuff is rad as hell and its fascinating how emergent narrative arises from such complexity.
Also love kruggsmash’s videos, the bastards a legend. He’s what got me into it.
But pre steam release I just could not get into actually playing it. Even with tile sets and such. I tried, I really did. But the horrid UI and high amounts of game ending bugs were just too much.
The steam release was the only game I’ve truly been hyped for in my adult life. I was giddy like a kid and got it the SECOND it released, and finally fell in love with PLAYING the game and not just hearing about it. Its so fun building up a fortress and getting invested in your little dwarves well being, hidden surprises they put in to spice things up. Every month there’s an update, even if is just a small peacemeal to let us know things are happening and adventure mode is coming along.
After playing for a while and learning enough to know how much you dont know, you can feel the limitless passion and raw intelligence that is the foundation for the insanely rich systems you work with. It feels like a living world in your computer. The closet thing to true technological magic I’ve ever had the pleasure of interacting with.
Andor’s Trail
Like just about everyone, I started the game by forgetting to equip the armour and weapon. Instadeath and rage at the weakest mobs.
Came back to it later and read some of the hint text, which helped to pass the first map. Then several months to grind away and complete every quest. Top game with an eclectic sense of humour. Very recommended.
https://f-droid.org/packages/com.gpl.rpg.AndorsTrail/
GPLv2 RPG fun.
Dragon Age: Origins. Not sure why. I was a big fan of Mass Effect already, and of story heavy RPGs in general, but I stopped this one pretty early on and sat on it for several years. Needless to say, it stuck the second time and now I’ve played it and the other Dragon Age games multiple times.
Horizon Zero Dawn
Same here. I first played it in 2019 and was immediately terrified of the enemy machines. Since I’m the kind of person who doesn’t enjoy being stressed out for fun in any context, I pretty quickly bounced off of it. I also eventually realized that I saw death/game over in video games as irredeemable failure, and I’m working on being more accepting of trial and error (in video games and elsewhere in my life). I returned to it in early 2022, tried different strategies when I died, and realized that I loved the game. Zero Dawn, Forbidden West, and their DLCs are now among the very few games I have 100 percented.
Prey (2017), Monster Hunter, Stalker, Dark Souls. All great games that only show their true self after some time investment. Not too ridiculous time investment apart from Monster Hunter which gets really fun literally only after a few tens of hours, maybe even a hundred. I wish I was kidding.
Monster Hunter. When I was a kid with a PSP I bought Freedom Unite since the box art was cool. Had not a fucking clue what was happening or how to even understand the weapons.
Years later I bought a 3DS, 3 Ultimate, and even a circle pad pro for it. Nope, still just didn’t even crack an hour of playtime because everything was just so strange. Finally, in probably 2019 or so I decided that there was too much cool word of mouth about the series for me to not try and figure out how it worked.
I got Generations Ultimate, and decided that if I could figure out how to play Monster Hunter that I wouldnt be a complete failure in life. I just played, found that nothing made sense, but just… kept going anyway. I started researching what the different weapons were for, realized that they’re basically just different fighting game character-type movesets, and from there I slowly explored the game until id ended up burning 240 hours or so on MHGU.
I discovered Monster Hunter World after that, and it was all over for me. I never get to g rank, but I’ve put probably a combined over 1k hours into the series, which is much more than I usually would for other games. Just fucking fantastic games in almost every way, except for tutorialization.
Monster Hunter for me as well! Tried 3 Ultimate on the 3ds and it just did not click for me. Tried it again with Rise and World and loved them
That’s because Rise and World are WAY better than the old games. Less clunky inventory, better movement, better everything. Trying to play MH3 or earlier is like pulling teeth now after Rise. It’s so much better in every way
I got the monster hunter on 3ds (MH 3 Ultimate), and I liked playing it, got pretty good at it, but man…the graphics on that system just isn’t right for that game. They tried making it look to non pixilated on a system that was too pixilated for it.
I’ve planned for quite a while to get it as a rom for my PC or steam deck and use some filters to smooth the jaggedness out of it and see how it does, but still haven’t gotten around to it yet. Really need to get on that. I played like 30 hours worth and stopped.
it’s originally a wii game (MH 3), for the Wii it looked impressive IMO. considering it a full port to the 3ds impressed me too. but yeah, it’s a console game on a too small handheld for most part.
I didn’t have issue with the size, really. I just didn’t like how the graphics looked on the 3ds.
So I did some digging around a bit, and while I can get the 3ds one to work on my steam deck with online play and much better graphics, it’s a pain in the ass. But I can get the wii version on there and looking great quite easily but no on line play. I never played online anyhow, so I plan on going that route and saving myself a bunch of setup time.
This is encouraging, as I have a game session of MH4 Ultimate forgotten in my 3DS for years now.
Control.
The beginning of the game is really slow, hard to understand what’s happening, and you literally have only minimal throwing ability. The manual navigation with overlay fullscreen map also doesn’t do justice to the game. Combining with the fact that I wasn’t used to playing these types of games, this was an easy pass for me after like 1 hour of the game.
But boy it’s awesome as you actually get more abilities and understand more of the story. Currently it’s one of the games I usually come back to.
Interesting, I had a similar experience at the start and couldn’t work out why everyone was praising it so much. Maybe I’ll give it another go
Please do. Control was such a hidden gem. I picked it up in a humble bundle and it absolutely blew me away.
I didn’t realize it was in the Alan Wake universe. I still need to play Control.
Yeah there’s only a couple subtle hints in the regular game and I think more in the dlc. I’m guessing they’ll lean into it more with control 2 now that AW2 is out as well.
Eve online.
Hows the active player count and meta looking these days?
Afair ccp has been killing the game for some time now.
As far as I notice they aren’t “killing the game” but I’ve been much happier since I gave up the idea of doing big null sec corpo blob wars and I assume those are the people that might have valid complaints.
I love the small gang cheap ship roams. Nothing like a fleet of mining frigates loaded for bear jumping haulers and randos in null sec. You get to be your own bait. I have been a little sad about the stealth nerfs, I miss just roaming in a stealth ship solo.
I’ve never found another game that can make my heart pound and adrenaline race like eve online.
What stealth nerfs? Did they nerf my beloved Astero?
I was a worhmoler back when I was still playing so big null block stuff isn’t really my forte
The return to expansions and giving out 7 days of omega for each has been a massive boost to numbers. the current expansion adds a few Pirate factions to the Faction warfare system. So happy we can finally join the good guys.
It’s my first week; so far is awesome
We will be watching your career with great interest.
DDR, use to talk mad shit about that game. Can’t remember what happened but I think my uncle bought it for me and then it just clicked. Ended up hanging at the arcade for hours all sweaty getting food court food.
I wouldn’t really call it a favorite, but I definitely ended up liking Nier: Automata pretty well after bouncing off it really hard when trying it at a friend’s house. That’s because we were trying from the start, and it starts with a section that’s about half an hour long, with only two checkpoints, vastly harder than anything else in the game, and in which the first half isn’t even the same genre as the rest of the game. It’s seriously one of the worst intros I can think of in a video game. The rest of the game is, y’know, a pretty good third-person action RPG.
Civilization VI
With my limited English back then, I struggled to understand how to play Civilization VI. I was expecting something similar to Age of Empires, which made me frustrated until I gave it another try a couple years later. Today, it stands as my most played game ever, with over 900 hours of gameplay.
deleted by creator
Against the Storm. Been on steam for 15 years and it’s my third most played game now. Rimworld and CK3 are the only ones above.
Pokémon Unite
I tried it early on but I felt it lacked the maturity and depth of playing a more serious and in-depth MOBA like League of Legends. I played a lot of Pokémon games throughout the years but it just paled compared to how fulfilling the long-form games and lore of Leagues went.
Turns out I’m a dad now and these shorter, punchier games are both perfect for me and somehow more fulfilling. On top of that they added complexity with Boost Medallions without breaking the game with them. It makes the setup more cerebral because you lose stats as well as gain.
