I played through Gris and had an absolute blast. I finished it in <3 hours, but spent another 3 or so tracking down collectibles (momentos) because the world is so pretty.
I also played Monument Valley 1&2, each in one sitting. The puzzles weren’t very hard, but I’m a sucker for non-Euclidean worlds (also loved The Bridge and Manifold Garden).
Other than that, I’ve been playing a bit of Fire Emblem: Engage. I probably won’t finish that before Christmas though, it’s a long game.
I’m probably going to pick up Bomb Rush Cyberfunk this Steam sale, which recently turned 1. I have kids, and they’re each getting a Switch game for Christmas, so I’ll have a few more to play soon.
Gris is such a beautiful game. It’s up there with Journey and Sayonara wild hearts for me in the games I can easily hold up as art category.
It absolutely is. I try to play 1-2 of these each year, and I have a collection in Steam called “short games” for experiences under 5 hours with something unique to them.
Some others:
- Gorogoa
- What Remains of Edith Finch
- INSIDE
They’re all very different, but they fit into that “games as art” category and don’t overstay their welcome.
I’m not always in the mood for these kinds of games, but when I am, they really scratch that itch.
Sayonara Wild Hearts was such an unexpected banger to play through. I still hope they make another one.
Dont know yet, but a very stressful period is done at the end of this week and i have some vacation after so from next week i will find an old gem and play the heck out of it
I’ve finally been playing through Mad Professor Mariarti on the Amiga. I saw it played many times as a child but now I’m finally playing it myself - and beating it!
Factorio, checking out Space Age. Discovered that Cliff Explosives are moved further down the tech tree…
My friend and I have just been using nukes lol. Bonus is you can see where cliffs used to be in the mini map it’s fun
Same, bought space age but loading up a new save file just makes my heart ache for my immaculate bus and signal setups
Cyberpunk,
Finally picked it up on this sale with Phantom Liberty.
Played about an hour so far, seems OK, have to get my Steam Controller setup properly for it still.
Pseudoregalia. Indie game with ridiculous movement tech. Very fun!
That one is great! I love this indie trend of low poly graphics.
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex for PSP. It’s not favorite genre, being an FPS, but as far as I’ve gotten, I can rely on my heavily-gunned Tachikoma to handle the problem when I struggle with the controls.
Oh neat, I didn’t know GitS had a game. PSP is a weird console though.
There’s a psone game too. You control the tank. Not bad at all for what it is
There’s also a PS2 SAC game that came about a month before the PSP.
Halo: Combat Evolved. I get what all the hype was about. This is a good game!
Can you even imagine how good that felt on an original Xbox?
Incredible, I’m sure. Especially for people who weren’t playing on PC before - it generally stands up to Half-Life in a lot of ways, including the enemy movement and maybe even AI, but the cutscenes have that more traditional cinematic look. I love the constant immersion of Half-Life, but this feels like watching an awesome sci-fi action movie, like Aliens. There’s enough survival horror and cosmic horror vibes as well to keep you going.
Consoles really didn’t have many good FPS until then. I’d say the Timesplitters series was a standout, as was Medal of Honor: Frontline.
Both of those felt kind of on rails compared to Halo though. Wide open areas, three way battles, vehicles…
Yeah, the vehicles and battlefield chaos are really well executed. It feels genuinely grandiose today, so it must have been mind blowing at the time. I can also tell the campaign is meant to teach you how to play multiplayer, which other games would go on to do in the years to come.
There’s a lot of Battlefield 3 in there. Or the other way around, more appropriately.
I experienced the whole original trilogy last year with a friend on coop. I get it now. Why so many people love Halo.
Btw, Halo 2 and 3 are much better than the first one. If you already liked that, you’re in for a treat.
I played a bit of Infinite coop - that game is super faithful, by way - and that was a lot of fun. Playing this in 2001 with a friend must have been fantastic fun.
You are sage like patient.
[crosses legs and hums]
I wasn’t very patient with that one at the time, somehow managed to get it running on my PC though and had my mind blown. Such a good game, basically everything is fantastic apart from that library level.
You know, having just played the Library level, I get the feeling that it was thematically necessary to drive home the scale of the cosmic horror you’re facing. It needs to be exhausting, overwhelming, unending…
I tried it on PC in 2004 and all I got was a slide show.
Heh, Stardew Valley here. I slept on it for years, until I found that it’s available on the Google Play Store lol.
Works really well on mobile!!
Same. I actually bought it on sale in steam Though Ill most probably stick to mobile + controller for it. PC version is now for mod testing (aka make it mobile-like)
Is the mobile version kept up to date? Does it have multiplayer?
Sadly no online multiplayer, but it is up to date alongside the PC version. There is an experimental LAN multiplayer option, but it’s apparently still very unstable
Yes it it kept up to date. Currently 1.6 (newest patch). But no official multiplayer on mobile.
You can, however, copy your mobile save to PC if you have Stardew on PC too. You just have to do the transfer each time (mobile to PC, play on PC, then xfer that PC save back to mobile so the save file stays up to date).
^ This. This is the way (No way am I starting on PC from the beginning as is)
ughhh multiplayer would be amazing
I’m playing Minecraft on the Wii U with my daughter… and since the eShop closed a while ago, I didn’t have any issues unlocking all skins and DLCs by…. Alternative means 😅
I like the style of the Mass Effect texture pack, and it’s fun exploring the included map.
Mass Effect. First time through the trilogy.
My buddy convinced me to play the trilogy for my first time like half a year ago now.
Have fun
How did you like it? I’m like 10 hours in and so far it seems ok, but I’m not seeing the super amazing game that my friends raved about. For instance last night while playing I thought about how Bioshock was much more immersive and gripping, and it came out the same year.
The first game is a bit different from the rest and it’s greatest strength is the world building of the universe, where it is the strongest title of the trilogy. People mostly like the mass effect series for the companions though, and they are at their best in the second game.
The first game suffers a bit from being an awkward hybrid between an infinity engine game and a more action-oriented game. It was a rough time for RPGs in general in that respect. ME2 and 3 lean more in to the action game play for better and worse (mostly better).
Unless you are in hurry to get on to the next game, I’d encourage you to do some of the optional and very easy to miss sidequests that you can get from exploring planets. Its worth checking the wiki for these if you don’t feel like doing enough exploring to stumble across them organically, I can in particular recommend the Cerberus quest chain and Talis geth quest chain.
Mass Effect 1 is really like the first season of a TV show. The series was still finding its footing, but the story and characters make up for the grindy bits
I liked how the combat system evolved and became more immersive instead of a third person rts. The story was interesting, with your choices following you through the games. I did a renegade run and still ended up with paragon points. Also, don’t explore and find everything unless you are dedicated to 100percent run.
Super amazing? No. But fun and a good story with fun characters. Talking to them for side missions actually makes bonding with them worth the time and effort. If you have all three games you might as well play the series as intended 1-3.bur if you only have one or two, the game falls flat. They need each other to make sense, have fun, and become one giant decent game.
So i say again, have fun. If you are getting frustrated, back off, relax, play some BioShock, then you get back up and eat that horse. It’s more important to enjoy the game then it is to finish it within a set time.
I’ve been playing Silent Storm a 2004 strategy RPG that is a total hidden gem. A little primitive but it feels a bit like the battle system from BG 3 with guns.
Silent Storm was a fun turn-based tactics game! Not as polished as something like the Firaxis xcoms, but more complete than a lot of other non-fantasy tactics games I’ve tried.
Sounds like I should try XCom. I bought every Humble Bundle for a couple years from it’s inception and I have 800+ games in my Steam library. I just played Silent Storm randomly and blind and was surprised.
Sounds like you guys might like The X-Com Files. A mod for the original.
Half Life 2. They gave it to me for free.
Finished it and got Necromunda: Hired Gun for $13.
Finished Lego City Undercover and The Veilguard. Had a blast with both.
That final dive to earth in LCU is amazing, it’s like they suddenly had a Call of Duty budget to play with.
Yeah. It was fun to play through.
I’ve just finished playing Half-Life (or in fact, the fan-made remake Black Mesa), and Half-Life: Uplink (the demo version that was released after the final game, and it consisted of a short non-canon scenario that’s not included in the final game, but lately was included in the 25th anniversary version).
I will be playing HL: Opposing Force and Blue Shift next. And in general I am planning to fish every Half-Life game this month (except Alyx since I don’t have good enough hardware for me to enjoy it, and playing it on GTX 1060 3GB is not enjoyable at all), and if it goes well Portal games as well.
Check out the fan games, Half-Life: Echoes and Entropy: Zero 1 and 2 afterwards.
